


Whisper in the Mist

by HeadintheCloudsForever



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Boggarts, Eventual Romance, F/M, Forests, Minor Violence, Pregnancy, Romance, Werewolf Bites, Werewolf Turning, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:15:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 77,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28156683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeadintheCloudsForever/pseuds/HeadintheCloudsForever
Summary: AU. Remadora, Hope-Lyall Lupin. Lyall Lupin tells his five-year-old grandson, Teddy Lupin, of the night that he met Teddy's grandmother, a young Muggle woman named Hope while walking in the woods when Hope Howell comes across a rather vicious boggart taking the shape of a man and tries to attack her while on her way home from her job in Cardiff. The two meet and fall in love.
Relationships: Hope Lupin/Lyall Lupin, Remus Lupin/Nymphadora Tonks
Kudos: 13





	1. Tell Me a Story

**Author's Note:**

> AUTHOR'S NOTE: Good Merlin Above, here I go again writing yet another* story for my favorite HP fandom, yet in a completely different AU. I was very hesitant to upload this story, as I've not seen too many fanfics that tackle the story of Hope and Lyall Lupin, but the plot bunny finally grabbed me by my ears and threw me into the wall last night at 2:00 in the bloody morning when I was trying to sleep, so I decided to take the plunge and go for it.
> 
> An AU set where Remadora lives, though this story primarily focuses on the lives of Remus's father, Lyall Lupin, and his mother, Hope. Two characters who I have a liking for, and I feel like are oft-overlooked and we only know a little bit of, thanks to snippets from the Pottermore website, Prisoner of Azkaban, and the like, but Tonks and Remus DO* make several appearances throughout this little fic of mine, so fear not fellow Remadora fanatics! The usual disclaimer, I do not own the characters of Harry Potter, and I own nothing and regret nothing.

* * *

**Whisper in the Mist**

**By: HeadintheCloudsForever**

* * *

**XXXX**

**CHAPTER ONE**

**XXXX**

**IN** appearance, Grandpa was nothing special, five-year-old Teddy Remus Lupin thought, but when he opened his mouth, it was like hearing a bird sing for the first time.

Lyall Lupin was old, and his deep wrinkles seemed to carve a map of his life on his still agile and mobile facial features. His twinkling light brown eyes that were so much like his dad's eyes, were framed by thick white eyebrows and on his stubbled chin were white whiskers. His bright brown eyes shone in the greying clouds above their heads as his teeth shone with a fresh white gleam that spelled mischief.

Though the aging wizard's smile faltered the moment his son and daughter-in-law came up behind Teddy and Remus knelt to scoop the five-year-old up by his armpits, before settling him on top of his shoulders, allowing him to ride piggyback through the cemetery so he wouldn't get his jeans muddy, much to Nymphadora's growing amusement.

"Grandpa?" came Teddy Remus Lupin's quiet, shy voice, reserved, like that of his father. Lyall chuckled and watched out of the corner of his eye as his grandson accidentally seized on a tuft of Remus's hair and pulled it a little too tightly.

Lupin winced, pulling a face, but he bit down on his bottom lip to keep from crying out in pain.

Lyall glanced up at his grandson, having to crane his neck slightly to do it, given how Remus was much taller than he was, standing a good head or two taller at around 6'3. Or was it 6'2? He couldn't remember, not that it mattered.

He smiled, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards as he reached up a warbling hand to tousle the boy's thick tuft of light brown hair that was in dire need of trimming two weeks ago, wondering if he'd have to do it again.

Dora Lupin always forgot to give the boy his haircuts on time. There was something about Teddy Remus Lupin that drew people to him. Lyall guessed it didn't hurt that he was a good-looking boy, but it was more than that.

He was quiet, but not out of painful shyness. It was a reservedness, like a conscious choice to observe the lie of the land before he got involved. Yet he wasn't stand-offish, he remained friendly faced and welcoming in body posture. It wasn't like he sat down one day and planned to be like that, it's just the way he was.

Lyall never saw him go out and deliberately make a friend, they just came to him. He inherited that trait from his mother.

There was nothing threatening about him, nothing at all. He was an easy listener, a good audience, giving encouraging feedback laced with intelligent comments. He worked hard, he got his work done around the house at home when told to.

"What is it, Teddy?" he questioned, eager to appease his only grandson, almost able to sense the question just begging to be asked, burning on the tip of his little tongue. There wasn't a question Teddy couldn't ask around his grandfather. No matter what, Lyall answered.

Teddy hesitated, biting down on his bottom lip, as if unsure whether or not to continue, before unclenching one of his little fists and digging into the pockets of his coat.

In his hand was a crumpled and worn photograph, torn off at the edges, yellowed slightly, from the curse of time and old age. Lyall's heart sank to the pit of his churning stomach as the five-year-old boy unfurled his fist and held out the photograph to his mother.

Tonks furrowed her brows into a frown and gingerly plucked the mysterious picture from her son's hand with her thumb and forefinger.

" _Teddy_ ," she began in a cautious tone that was slightly clipped and hard as she glanced down at the contents of the photograph clutched in the palm of her hand. "Where on Merlin's green earth did you get this? Do you have something you want to tell your father and me?" Tonks asked in a slightly impatient voice. "And please don't think of lying to us, Teddy Bear," she warned, her voice low.

If it was at all possible, Teddy's face turned as bright crimson as a fresh tomato, and he suddenly had trouble averting his mother's piercing grey eyes as they narrowed.

"Um, I—I found it in your room, Grandpa!" he squeaked, burying his head in his father's hair, as if suddenly afraid to look into his grandfather's eyes and see the dawning look of sadness welling within the man's eyes.

His voice hitched unexpectedly, and Teddy fell silent.

Remus's already pallid features, still rather peaky looking as Lyall's son was coming down off this month's full moon, drained of colors and the moment the proud father opened his mouth to argue, Lyall, sensing imminent danger, as his son had inherited his temper, sadly to say, that he was about to severely discipline his son, for not only venturing into Lyall's bedroom unsupervised but taking something that did not rightfully belong to him.

Lyall did not want to see his grandson get in trouble, and it was this that decided to save Teddy further embarrassment by intervening on the young boy's behalf.

"It's quite all right, Remus. Nymphadora. Truly, it is," he muttered in a quiet, somber voice as he reached up and patted Remus affectionately on his shoulder. "It isn't his fault. He's just a boy, you two. Boys are curious little creatures, aren't they?" he added with a soft chuckle, though it did not meet his eyes as he finally caught a glimpse of the photograph his grandson had managed to wander off with, probably last weekend when his parents brought him over that Friday night to spend the weekend with him and take two days to themselves to go see the sights of Sussex.

A pang of inexplicable sadness began to well in his chest, spreading like a fiery warmth from the confines of his heart, now little more than a throbbing, corded mass of muscle that pumped blood relentlessly into his veins, as his gaze met the subject of the photograph.

A young woman with light brown wavy locks and dark chocolate brown eyes stared back at Lyall, her kind white smile still sending his heart careening and faltering, even after all these years without her, Hope's death still ached, paining him like yesterday.

The picture clutched in Teddy's hand as the proud parents and Lyall made their way towards a wooden bench so that Lyall could take a seat, his lumbago in his aging years catching up to him after an hour walk in the park, was like a Time-Turner for Lyall.

One glance and he was thirty again, with his life stretched before him, all the decisions that lay between his present self and his past self were unmapped, anything felt like it was possible to Lyall.

How impossible that it seemed all those day-to-day decisions would take him across these long, lonely years to where he sat now, still quite content with his life, and yet, without his lovely Hope by his side, still feeling like an integral part of his life was missing, because it bloody was.

If he had not been combing the forest that day, the two of them never would have met, and if he hadn't, then where would he be now? Certainly not here, Lyall knew.

When his wife died a few years ago, Lyall Lupin had never experienced grief quite this bad before, save for perhaps that ill-fated night when Remus was bitten by Fenrir Greyback, the guilt of his remarks made towards the savage werewolf would haunt Lyall until his dying breath.

But then it started up for him again when he lost his wife, his world, his hero.

It snuck up on Lyall quietly and took the wizard six feet under its arms in a mere instant. Every memory played like a Celestina Warbeck song on repeat, repeating itself in Lyall's mind for what seemed like forever.

He was lost because mostly he had lost a big part of himself. He could not get that part back, and Lyall wanted it so badly as his life depended on his Hope, but she was gone, vanished, into thin air, dead a few years.

Lyall couldn't say that it got better as the days passed, but it _did_ get easier.

At first, Lyall thought that grief was something bad that took him ten feet under the ground, rendering him unable to breathe, to think at all, but soon, he learned, it was just the price he had to pay for daring to fall in love with a young Muggle girl from Cardiff.

The grief came in waves and threatened to consume him entirely. It was his master, for now. He was at the mercy of its whims and at times it bit at him with such ferocity Lyall feared it would leave him an empty shell.

"Mr. Lupin? Are you all right?" came his daughter-in-law's concerned sounding voice.

Lyall blinked and sanguinely turned his head to look at Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin, whose delicately arched brows were furrowed in a concerned frown.

He felt a light blush speckle on his cheeks. He'd spaced out again. Lyall coughed once to clear his throat, to stop himself from letting his mind drift to dark, desolate places again, turned to look at his grandson, now sitting happily sandwiched in between his mother and father. Seeing how happy the young boy was lifted Lyall's broken spirit greatly.

Unfortunately, his grandson, sensing he was being watched, slowly and almost methodically turned his head, and asked the one question that very nearly crushed his grandfather's heart right there on the spot on the bench.

"Why don't you ever talk about Grandma?" Teddy asked in a casual, nonchalant voice.

The boy was merely curious, and for that, Lyall couldn't blame him, though just the mere mention of Hope caused his throat to hollow and constrict.

" _Teddy_!" came Remus's admonishing voice as his son lowered his harsh, rough sounding tone that, thanks to the nature of his transformations post-full moon, always sounded rather hoarse and weak for four or five days after his full-moon cycle. "That's _enough_ ," he growled angrily.

"No, no, Remus, don't. This isn't necessary," Lyall snapped, his own temper swelling to the surface as he raised a hand to stop his son's temper from imploding. "It's quite all right."

His light brown eyes twinkled as they drifted downward and rested on the photograph of Hope he had taken shortly after the two of them met and started dating. As a young child who had been taught by his parents not to judge others based on their looks or occupations, Teddy was too young to understand the troubles that his grandfather had faced since Hope's death.

And as such, because of this, Teddy did not have a grasp on the daily struggle his grandfather faced without Hope by his side, and he was unaware of the wound he had inflicted. Only when his grandfather pointedly turned his head away and averted his gaze from his little family, did Teddy realize he may have said something wrong.

With a look of concern, Teddy did not protest as Lyall reached out with a slightly trembling hand and gingerly plucked the photograph from his grandson's clutches, proceeding to hold the picture of his deceased wife with such a painstaking tenderness that almost physically ached to look at.

Lyall let out a haggard sigh, thinking that the time had finally come. Teddy was old enough to understand.

Surely, taking an evening to tell the story of how his grandfather met his grandmother couldn't hurt? Though his heart ached horribly and though he smiled at his grandson, hoping to silently convey to the boy and to Remus and Tonks that he was going to be just fine, the mask of happiness, that false bravado, now plastered onto his lined and weathered features didn't work to trick his mind.

Ah, but Merlin, if only it were that simple, yes. Once again, Lyall's heart ached, only this time, there was an added layer of salt on top of his already tender heart, and for a moment, Lyall thought revisiting his memories of his sweet beloved Hope might send his mind utterly insane.

But…there was no point in concealing the truth from his grandson forever. The boy should know of his familial history.

All of it. The good parts… _and_ the bad. Lyall sighed. "Would you like to hear the story of how your grandmother, and I met, Teddy Bear?" he asked, the beginnings of a coy little smirk tugging at the edges of his lips as he affectionately used Teddy's mother's nickname for the boy, chuckling as the boy scrunched his nose, though he smiled at his grandfather and eagerly nodded.

Teddy glanced to his parents for confirmation, who exchanged a brief, concerned look, but quickly nodded their consent.

"Can we go home now, Grandpa?" he asked, shuddering as a particularly cold gust of wind wafted through the park and he shrunk down into his coat for warmth as much as possible, pulling the red woolen hat that Mrs. Weasley had knitted for him down further over his head and completely covering his light brown hair.

Lyall hesitated, just for a fraction of a second as he and Remus and Tonks rose from their perches on the bench, brushing their hands on the seats of their pants.

Lyall flinched as a jolt of pain shot from his legs and traveled its way up and down his spine. The old man had long since forgotten what it felt like to have joints that moved freely, without pain. His aches were his constant companions, not friends, but always with him. His memories both warmed and haunted him, sometimes drawing a smile and other times a tear. And time was the thief he always suspected her to be, taking his wife, taking his friends, but none of that mattered to Lyall anymore.

A stray wisp of Teddy's bangs was stuck to his forehead, despite his best efforts to bury it beneath his little knitted hat. Lyall chuckled tiredly as he brushed it away with a careful tenderness, before lowering his arm and allowing Teddy to grip onto his hand, almost crushing his fingers in his ironclad grip. The boy was terrified of Apparating and hated every second of the experience.

But Lyall shot his grandson a tender smile, hoping to alleviate some of the five-year-old's fears, knowing the sensation would be only within a fraction of a second, before Teddy so much as had time to blink an eye.

"Okay," Lyall replied gruffly. "Let's go home, Ted."

* * *

Lyall Lupin's small cottage was perched on the plains near the woods, so old and poor how it was still standing surprised even the rest of Lupin's neighbors. And yet, despite this fact, it seemed alive and welcoming, a warm ribbon of smoke rising from the old, lopsided brick chimney. The walls were made of the same wood and the roof was very clearly stone, so old, that it was a wonder how it had not yet caved in under the curse of the elements.

The cottage was the only thing here. Lyall's closest neighbors were about a mile or so away, and his home would have looked abandoned were it not for the smoke.

Half an hour later, their trip home delayed because Teddy was hungry, and Lyall had insisted on treating his son, wife, and grandson, to dinner before heading back to his cottage, a quaint little Muggle diner he'd taken Hope to on one of their first dates following the incident in the woods, Teddy sat happily perched in a chair that was just his size in front of the roaring fire in the fireplace, seated cross-legged, while his dad brought steaming mugs of hot chocolate for everyone.

The hot chocolate Dad made had to be milk—all milk—with two heaped spoonfuls of a mixture that contained real cocoa. Remus couldn't abide by the stuff that was just flavoring and sugar. He'd rather have just milk with a dash of vanilla than that wretched trash.

"Here you are, Ted. Be careful, it's hot," Lupin warned, a note of concern laced throughout his voice.

"Thanks, Dad," Teddy chirped happily, winding his hands around the mug of hot cocoa, plucking all the marshmallows out that had been floating at the top of the beverage, and eating those first thing, claiming he didn't like them soggy, much to his mother's amusement, as Tonks erupted into a giggling fit from her spot on the sofa.

Lupin, meanwhile, looked rather dumbfounded and perplexed by his son's behavior but chose not to question it. "Are you _sure_ , Dad? You don't have to do this, you know. Teddy can wait a while," Remus questioned, raising his eyebrows at the hunched-over form of his frail father seated in his wooden rocking chair, his fingers laced together as he looked at his son with a gleam in his eyes.

Lyall immediately fixed his son with a pointed glower, his light brown eyes narrowing until they were mere slits, causing Remus to shirk away as Tonks draped an arm over her husband's shoulder and pulled Remus close for support. He was briefly reminded of Lord Voldemort whenever his father narrowed his piercing gaze like this.

To say it unnerved Remus greatly was something of an understatement, and when Lyall spoke to his son, there were the briefest hints of annoyance seeping its way unbidden to the surface of his normally kind, quiet voice.

"A boy should know his grandmother," Lyall Lupin answered in a quiet, somber voice that reflected the brief tinge of melancholy now flickering its way in Lyall's eyes.

Remus did not look entirely convinced, sensing the way his father's shoulders drooped, that Lyall was tired.

"If you're sure," Remus mumbled, not sure what else to say, glancing down at Dora's left hand that rested on top of his thigh, compromising to make up for the heavy, somewhat awkward silence that lingered in the air between the two of them as he looked upon his withered father.

Lyall was growing more and more wrinkled with each day, looking as though he had too much skin to cover his wilting frame. His face was fading to an almost ashy grey color, looking as though dust had begun to gather on him.

Remus could remember a time in his life when his father had looked every bit the powerful man and wizard that he knew Lyall Lupin to be, but now, Lyall had lost his youthful and handsome look, thanks to the stressors of raising a werewolf for a son, and for a moment, Remus felt guilty.

Lyall Lupin was clean-shaven, and his brown hair flecked with bits of grey was trimmed rather short, revealing a decrepit mask where every wrinkle, blemish, and imperfection could be seen for all to view.

Remus hurt like hell when he looked at his father like he was doing now. He wished to remember the strong wizard his father had been, the strong-willed and merciful Ministry employee, the gentle and caring father, the adoring and passionate husband to his mother, Hope, Merlin bless her soul.

Yet when Remus looked upon Lyall now, all he could see was a wizened and frightened old man near the brink. As he looked upon him, Remus could not help but wonder if his father was more scared of living or of dying.

The old man hunched over in his lounge chair, leaning closer to the fire, edging his hands towards the flames to warm them from the bitter evening. The light from the flames illuminated his tired, worn face, wrinkles boring deeply into his skin. His expression was of frustration and fatigue.

The world seemed no place for this man; he had had enough. Lyall Lupin had stories to tell, experience danced on his lips like a curious child. And yet he stayed silent, those listless eyes just watching, not telling, fire adorning his weather-beaten, lined skin.

His son's voice pierced the silence between them, effectively pulling Remus from his thoughts of his father as he looked towards Teddy, who was, in turn, looking at his grandfather, his little brows furrowed together in confusion, before he gingerly rose from his comfortable spot in front of the fireplace, and silently tried to give back the photograph he had stolen to his grandfather.

Teddy bit down on his bottom lip and nervously shifted his weight from one stockinged foot to the other, actively averting Lyall's gaze, which was looking rather questioning now. The five-year-old boy parted his lips open slightly to speak, but when he tried to find his voice, all that came out was a breathy little squeak, a strangled attempt at speech.

Remus waited with bated breath, wondering if his grandfather would eventually run out of patience with his grandson, but the moment for Lyall never came. Not once.

Lyall merely proceeded to look at Teddy with a calm, interested expression as he cocked his head to the side and patiently waited for his grandson to collect his thoughts.

When Teddy _did_ finally manage to regain control of his voice, Remus felt Dora give a start at how weak and hoarse his voice sounded, so incredibly small and meek.

"Here, Grandpa," Teddy managed to croak out in a hoarse sounding gasp, the boy not realizing he had a chocolate mustache forming on his upper lip from his hot chocolate, which earned a light smile from his grandfather.

Lyall started at the photograph in his grandson's outstretched hand for a moment, struggling to find his words. After a moment of hesitation, he raised his hand to the photograph, making a motion like he was going to take it, Remus and Tonks noticed, but what he did next surprised the young parents.

Instead of taking it, as Lupin and Tonks had suspected Lyall would do, the tired old man merely let out a tired sigh and curled the five-year-old's fingers protectively over the tattered, worn picture of Hope.

"Keep it, Teddy," Lyall muttered in a quiet, somber voice. "I have my memories of your grandmother to keep her spirit alive in my heart. You ought to be able to remember her as your grandmother. But your grandpa? I remember her as my wife. Someday, you'll understand, Teddy," he added, reaching out a hand and playfully poking Teddy in his chest, not protesting one bit when the five-year-old wizard in the making clambered onto his lap, resulting in affectionate smiles from both of his parents.

"But I want to understand _now_ ," Teddy whined, sticking out his bottom lip in a slight pout, biting on it.

Lyall chuckled at his grandson's eagerness, waiting for Nymphadora and Remus to get themselves situated as they found a pair of pillows to use as back support. The two parents sensed Lyall had quite a story to tell their son, and if they were going to be here a while, they might as well get comfortable and listen to the man tell his tale of how he met the woman who would one day become his wife, and then eventually, the grandmother to Teddy Remus Lupin.

Teddy squirmed in Lyall's lap and shifted his position better, having to crane his neck upward slightly to better look his grandfather in the eyes. "Does your story have monsters in it?" he questioned, a note of hope in his voice.

From Lyall's left, he heard his son give a sardonic little laugh that sounded like a cross between a laugh and a snort.

"Yes, you could say that, son," Remus murmured.

Lyall's head whiplashed sharply upward to regard his son from his place on the sofa. The displeasure at the underlying note of self-deprecation at his son's jab, as Remus had been referring to himself, his condition as a werewolf just now, did not sit well at all with Lyall, and Remus flinched as a low noise that could almost be described as a growl emitted from deep within his chest.

Lyall Lupin shot his son a pointed glower and narrowed his eyes, making a 'harumphing' noise, and made it a point to fold his arms across his chest.

" _Excuse me_ , I'm trying to tell my grandson here a _story_. Please be _quiet_!" he snapped, no traces of warmth in his tone towards Remus.

Nymphadora shot her husband a bemused look, clamping a hand over her mouth, looking like she was unsure whether or not to laugh at her husband getting scolded by her father-in-law, and chose to compromise by taking an extra-large swig of hot cocoa and choking on it.

Lyall found it difficult not to roll his eyes a bit. He did not particularly like or appreciate when his son spoke of himself in what Lyall believed to be odious terms.

Remus was _not_ a monster, and he hoped that one day, the man would start to see it for himself, that he _was_ , and always _had_ been, a _normal_ man, first and foremost.

He had a family. A loving wife who adored him more than anything, as Hope had used to behave around him, a wonderful son in their precious Ted, a stable job teaching the Defense Against the Dark Arts position at Hogwarts that would almost guarantee a bright future for his son when Teddy came of age at eleven to attend Hogwarts.

Lyall's previously good mood was ready to plummet into a sea of melancholy at the unpleasant thought of thinking that his son would never see himself as worthy, though he was instantly pulled from his dark, torpid whirl of thoughts scattering in his brain by Teddy tugging on the sleeve of his thick black woolen sweater, begging for his attention to be returned to his current task at hand.

" _Grandpa_!" Teddy squeaked in a disappointed voice. "Will you tell me now, _please_? I...I want to hear the story of Grandma," he pleaded, the hope in his voice growing now, and Lyall felt a surge of affection flood through his veins and warm his heart, thinking that the note of hope that he detected in his grandson's voice, was his wife's way of communicating to him, where she was.

His mood instantly returned to normal, a wide smile spreading over his lined and weathered face as Lyall scooted his wooden rocking chair closer to the roaring fire.

The candlelight above the mantlepiece of the fireplace in the living room of Lyall Lupin's little two-bedroom cottage flickered, briefly showing Remus's father.

Teddy sat in front of his grandfather, utterly enthralled. He couldn't see the laughter in Grandpa's eyes or a smile twitching at his thin, if not slightly cracked lips from the bitter cold. Instead, Grandpa appeared quite skeletal and deranged.

His sockets lay as inky pools, the weak yellow glow only illuminating enough to make him spookier than the blackness alone could ever be. But Teddy knew better.

Teddy knew this was Grandpa's idea of fun, and perhaps it would be.

His stories were legendary, especially the spookier ones, and perhaps how he met Grandma was a little bit scary. Dad had _said_ there were _monsters_ , after all. Practically rocking back and forth from his spot on the rug in front of the fireplace, Teddy couldn't keep his excitement from bubbling over and the question tumbled unchecked from his lips before the boy could stop himself.

"Are there _monsters_ in this story, Grandpa?" he squeaked, feeling his light brown eyes go wide and round with shock, brimming with awe and wonder as he gaped.

Lyall chuckled upon hearing the eagerness and excitement that had seeped its way unbidden to the surface of his grandson's voice. He glanced up briefly towards Remus and Nymphadora before turning back to Teddy.

Teddy's parents shot Lyall a look of bemused exasperation. Well, more accurately put, _Remus_ looked exasperated, while Nymphadora was the one to look amused at her son's seemingly random fascination with monsters over the last six months, always clamoring for a story at bedtime that dealt with a hero defeating a monster.

Lyall leaned forward in his chair, clasping his hands together and bringing them to rest idly on his lap, never once breaking eye contact with Teddy's eager brown eyes.

"That's actually how your grandma and I met, Ted, believe it or not. It all started with a monster in the woods," Lyall quietly explained, not bothering to stifle the tiny, affectionate smile that tugged the corners of his thin lips upward. His smile widened even further as Teddy's light brown eyes grew wide and round, bristling with intrigue.

Lyall's brown eyes took on a twinkling sheen as he sat back in his rocking chair and began to rock it, thinking best how he wanted to start his story and tell it in a way that would hold his grandson's interest, and the boy wouldn't get bored.

Therein lay a tale of how he met Hope…

But Teddy had asked him to tell it, and Lyall considered himself a man and wizard of his word, especially to his family and friends, and he had said he would tell Teddy the story of how he met Hope, all of it.

The good parts, _and_ the bad…

Lyall heaved a tired sigh and closed his eyes wearily, needing a moment before continuing, and when he did find his voice again, even Lyall was momentarily surprised to hear the affection at reliving a memory that he had long since buried and put away in the darkest recesses of his mind, several years ago.

Lyall opened his eyes and looked into the warm, umber, pleading eyes of his grandson, and just that single span of a look was all it took for Lyall to find his resolve.

Teddy wanted to know his grandmother's history, and so Lyall would tell it to him, even if it took all night.

Feeling the beginnings of a soft, genuine smile snake its way onto his lips, Lyall leaned forward in his chair and launched into the tale of how he met his wife. His Hope.

"It all started with a whisper in the mist…"

* * *

**I love writing Remadora as parents to little Teddy. Warms my heart, and I like to think that Hope and Lyall were wonderful parents to Remus. Coming up in Ch. 2, Hope Howell takes an ill-fated walk in the woods...**


	2. A Walk in the Woods

**XXXX**

**CHAPTER TWO**

**XXXX**

**HOPE** Howell exhaled a slightly shaking breath as she slung the strap of her black leather purse over the strap of her shoulder and shuffled her way down the sidewalk.

She had just clocked out from the end of her shift, her standard 8 am to 5 pm at the insurance office in Cardiff where she worked the front desk reception area, and the young brunette was eager to head for home, fast. Everyone had seemed extra irritating today and Hope really didn't want to spend any more time with her coworkers than she'd already been forced to.

Her boss, Steve, a middle-aged man in his early fifties, had glanced down the front of her short-sleeved, black silk blouse for a highly inappropriate moment that had lasted way too long and had made her feel uncomfortable, to the point where she spoke up about it. To make matters worse, Steve had shrugged off the abhorrent behavior when Hope had said something to him.

Today was one of the first days that she left the office for lunch, unable to tolerate the stuffy atmosphere any longer.

It was more cost-effective to bring her lunch from home and just eat in the breakroom in the back, even if it did mean Hope didn't have much of an opportunity to get away from everyone, but she hadn't been able to stomach it when Steve and one of their agents, a guy named Jerry, had made her go back a second time and get their orders right when she'd delivered their cheeseburgers, and the restaurant Hope had picked their food up from had forgotten to put mustard and pickles on both their burgers. That had been the breaking point of Hope's patience, and young Hope Howell had taken a longer lunch break.

Thank God it was now five o'clock on a Friday evening, and she didn't have to return to this place until Monday morning. Hope raised her delicately arched, shaped eyebrows as she looked across the parking lot of the insurance office to see an unfamiliar white van parked.

It looked like something a delivery driver would use, except that it was strangely unmarked, and its windows tinted, even the front windshield. The vehicle's windows were entirely too dark for the young woman to see into.

The driver was not at all visible, but as far she knew, none of her coworkers from work owned such a vehicle and Hope lived close enough that she could walk to work, though on days when the weather was especially dreary or too cold to trudge down the sidewalk, Hope took the bus.

As Hope Howell stared across the way at the unfamiliar vehicle, Hope frowned again. She didn't know this person, it was after business hours, so why were they here? The delivery man that came on Monday's, Wednesday's, and Friday's, always delivered their shipments of office supplies to the front desk so Hope could sign for them. And their insurance office was now closed.

Hope's frown deepened, and she bit down on her bottom lip, feeling her fingers curl instinctively into a protective fist over the strap of her black purse, wondering what it was the driver wanted if the person behind the wheel was perhaps lost. On a good day, the young twenty-eight-year-old might have wandered up to the white van in question and rapped on the window with her knuckles until the driver rolled down his or her window and told her what was wrong, if they were lost and needed directions.

But…she didn't feel as assertive as usual with all the talk going around lately of the strange murders that were happening near an alleyway, not that far from her home.

Whoever the creep was, he'd killed at least eight people over the last year, the murders becoming closer and closer together, and the local news on the telly was covering the latest victim in almost excruciating details.

Her coworkers at work were all on edge, not to mention the rest of the folk that lived in the area, Hope included, where the murders were taking place. The murders, it seemed, were all anybody wanted to talk about, much to Hope's discomfort during work hours. Local law enforcement hadn't a clue as to the man's identity at all.

The murders were all anyone wanted to talk about, and it was scary and gravely unsettling to Hope Howell how there was someone on the streets indiscriminately killing folks, with no rhyme or reason as to how his chosen victims were selected. It seemed completely random, which made finding the person responsible difficult for the police.

She swallowed nervously as she stared across the lot. Whoever was driving the white van didn't seem to have any plans of deciding just what the bloody hell they were doing here. They did not pull into a nearby parking space or back out and leave.

Perhaps they were lost and re-planning their route. Whatever their situation happened to be, the fact that they made no motion to get out and ask Hope for directions, if they were in fact, lost at all, greatly unnerved the young brunette administrative assistant. To get home via her usual route, she would have to walk right past it.

_What if the man who's been behind the killings is behind the wheel of that van_? Her conscience piped up at the back of her mind. Nervously biting down on her bottom lip, Hope glanced to her left, towards the woods.

It was a short-cut that would take her home and cut off her usual walking time by about ten minutes, give or take if she hurried. Hope narrowed her kind hazel eyes until they were slits, weighing the pros and cons of taking the short-cut through the woods, and craning her neck upward to look towards the sky at the black and purple thunderclouds that rolled near, looming in the distance.

Occasionally, the crack of thunder could be heard. For an inexplicable reason that Hope Howell could not even begin to fathom, a vent of adrenaline coursed through her veins as she cast a wary glance back over her shoulder, towards the mysteriously parked, strange white van and froze.

The stupid van was parked, unmoved, and still there! Pursing her lips into a thin line, she stared at it for a half-second more than probably was appropriate, before she made up her mind. Hope decided taking her usual route tonight to get home was not at all worth it. She was going to have to chance it.

Hope was going to walk through the woods. Hope very nearly screamed when she heard a car door close behind her, coming from her immediate left. Spinning around on the heel of her black ankle boot, a hand over her racing heart, she looked across the lot to see her coworker, Janey, pulling her purse up over her shoulder and opening the car door to slide inside the driver's side.

Janey, a kind, older woman in her late fifties, offered Hope a small half-smile and waved to her co-worker. Hope exhaled slowly through her nose. She had thought Janey and the rest of their ten employees that worked in the little insurance office had gone home already, but that did not appear to be the case. She'd been so distracted by the suspicious van that she wasn't paying attention to anything else.

"Are you all right, Hope?" Janey asked, furrowing her greying brows in a frown, her knuckles almost white as she clutched onto the steering wheel, the keys in the ignition, though the older, matronly woman made no move to back her car out of the lot and leave, not liking how pale and clammy Hope Howell's face looked, the sheen of sweat on her browbone.

Hope blinked owlishly at the older woman, an insurance underwriter whose office was to the reception desk's instant left. Hope liked Janey Smith well enough, thought of her as a mother figure when Hope had no one else, her parents succumbing to cancer, well, her mother, her father, of a broken heart.

Janey was around fifty-four or so, never married, but did have one son Hope's age from a previous fling a long time ago, the father not in the picture, and she lived at home with her two cats. Janey was always asking after Hope's well-being, insisting she take more to eat during mealtimes, always pushing little pieces of chocolate on her, leaving them on her desk for Hope to find, and during birthdays and the Christmas holiday, Janey always went out of her way to get Hope a small gift and make their only receptionist at their office feel truly appreciated by her and the rest of the employees.

"O—oh, y-yes, Janey, I—I'm fine," she stammered, a light pink blush speckling along her cheeks as she pointedly averted her gaze, her fist tightening over the strap of her purse, and looked away from the underwriter.

But the older woman did not look convinced, for she merely proceeded to raise her greying eyebrows and look unconvincingly towards the young brunette, studying the woman's nervous, rather skittish demeanor, how she constantly looked back over her shoulder at a white van.

"Would you like me to give you a ride home, dear?" Janey offered in what she hoped was a non-judgmental tone, though it was no secret to Hope and anyone else besides, that she did not approve of their office's youngest employee walking alone on these streets after dark with a deranged killer on the loose. It was a surefire way for Hope to get herself seriously injured if she happened to be the next unfortunate victim to stumble along the man's path.

If it was at all possible, Hope's face flushed high with color, her cheeks a bright rosy pink that had nothing to do with the chilly beginning October air as the wind rustled.

"Oh, no, no thank you, Janey. I appreciate your kind offer and your concern, but I'm sure I'll be just fine, mum."

Janey furrowed her brows in a frown as she glanced out her car's window and up towards the encroaching storm clouds that were steadily making their way closer.

"You're _quite_ sure, dear? It's looking like it might rain," she added conversationally, still not at all convinced.

"Positive," Hope insisted, nodding vehemently, her fingers still tightening over the strap of her purse as she continued to cast a suspicious glance towards the van.

Sensing the older woman was not convinced, Hope shot Janey Smith what she hoped was a kindly smile, one that the older woman returned as Janey sat in her car.

At seeing the younger woman smile, Janey couldn't help but feel her heart swell. The girl had always been like the daughter she never had. She cared about Hope Howell greatly, and it had not escaped her attention that the young brunette had been spending increasingly more and more time alone by herself, finding comfort in her novels.

Hope's head snapped up sharply to the left as a low crack of thunder rent the otherwise silent air, her nostrils flaring as the oncoming scent of heady rain was imminent. She needed to hurry if she wanted to make it home safe and dry before the thunderstorm hit. It was looking to be a particularly nasty one, at that.

"Hope?" asked Janey.

With a furtive, guilty look, Hope slowly swiveled her head back around and returned her attention to her coworker and admittedly, something of a mother figure in her life when she had no one else following her parents' deaths. Hope took a half step forward towards the driver's side of Janey's old Volkswagen, whose eyebrows were furrowed, and her light green eyes concerned for her safety.

Hope extended her hand and gave Janey's hand a light, reassuring squeeze through the rolled-down window.

"I will be just _fine_ , Janey. You should go before the rain comes down. I don't want you driving in this weather," Hope admonished the older woman lightly, knowing Janey's strained eyesight was not what it once used to be.

Janey made an odd little noise at the back of her throat that sounded as though she did not believe Hope.

"Oh, don't worry about me, Howell," she chuckled, relinquishing her grip on Hope's hand, and affectionately patting the steering wheel of her car. The older woman frowned, suddenly not liking the cold feeling of dread that wafted down her spine at the very idea of leaving the young twenty-eight-year-old woman alone to fend for herself.

She decided to try one more time, though Janey already had a feeling in the pit of her stomach Hope Howell, the stubborn girl that she was, would refuse her offer of a ride home. But still, she tried, just wanting to see Hope safe.

"You sure I can't give you a lift home? I'd love you to stay for dinner. I'm making meatloaf and mashed potatoes. _Robert's_ coming, dear, I'm sure he'd just _love_ to see you, Howell," Janey added in a sly, coy little voice, wriggling her greying brows the young woman's direction.

Hope inwardly groaned, immediately turning her face to the left so her coworker wouldn't see her rolling of her eyes. Janey had been trying to get Hope to her house over for dinner ever since her son had moved back to town and bought a house near his mother and Hope just couldn't bring herself to tell Janey that she appreciated the gesture but wasn't interested. Not in the slightest. Not that she had anything against Robert, mind you. He was a bit of a plain chap, if not a little stiff and stale, but…just wasn't for her.

She offered Janey a small, sad smile. "That's ah, very kind of you, Janey, but I…I already have plans tonight."

Janey frowned, seeing right through Hope's lies, though even as her lips pursed into a thin line, she did not press the young woman for an explanation. She sighed, turning the keys in the ignition, and started her car up.

"I know it's _difficult_ for you, dear, without your parents around, but you really should meet a man you could see yourself settling down with, give him children. Have a family. There's someone out there who sees you for who you are. Once you find that person, then run as if the devil himself is after you! I won't stop you when that does."

Hope couldn't help but smile at Janey's words as she turned away from her coworker, making to head towards the woods, though not before glancing back over her shoulder one last time to regard Janey Smith with a smile.

"Thanks, Janey," she muttered. "But…I don't know if there _is_ such a person for me. Not in Cardiff, anyways."

The note of disgruntled bitterness in Howell's sweet, shy, kind, and quiet tone was almost unmistakable.

For a moment, the older woman did not know what to make of it. There was a faraway glint in the imaginative young woman's eyes that Janey was not at all sure what to make of, but then the younger woman blinked, and as soon as the strange look had flitted across Hope Howell's eyes, it was gone. "Call me when you get home, so I know you made it safely."

And with that, the young brunette administrative assistant turned her back on the insurance underwriter and began walking towards the woods, her hand clutched over the strap of her black leather purse in a tight grip, quickening her pace, hoping to beat the coming storm.

Janey frowned as she stared after the young woman heading towards the edge of the woods just directly behind the old brick building that their office was located in, thinking that this was still a mistake in letting Hope go.

Nevertheless, there was no changing Hope Howell's mind once it was made up, and Janey knew if she were to try to go after the young brunette now, she would just refuse again, and then she would be back to square one.

The older woman's scowl etched upon her lined and slightly weathered face deepened as Hope Howell's silhouette faded from her view as she disappeared into the thick forest that was more brush than woods, into the fog.

As Janey pulled her car out of the insurance office's parking lot and hung an immediate right to head for her flat, she could not help but think that she was making a big mistake by not protesting further that Hope not to go in those woods, that she should swallow her pride and accept the damn ride home when Janey had kindly offered it.

Unbeknownst to her as Janey drove home, Hope Howell as she took a step into the woods and stared straight at the woodland path in front of her was thinking the exact same thought. It was simple, but a poignant one.

_I hope this is not a mistake…_

* * *

Less than fifteen minutes into her unexpected jaunt into the woods, Hope let out a yelp of surprise as she fell to the ground and stumbled over what was either a hidden twisted tree root underneath a pile of leaves or more likely, in this case, it was her own foot.

The roots in the forest behind their insurance office seemed to have a mind of their own. Hope's feet and legs felt like blocks of stone, and if she had tripped over herself in the last five minutes, well, this would be what, her third or fourth time it happened?!

Grumbling quietly to herself under her breath, the young woman pulled herself back up to her feet, feeling grateful she'd worn her black ankle boots instead of the ballet flats she had almost slipped on today instead of when deciding what to wear, and staggered along through the woods, following the path beneath her feet, hoping it would lead her home.

She'd not been in the woods but five minutes yet, and already, Hope was tired of this forest. Hope didn't want to admit it to herself, but…she was starting to think that she was lost. And to make matters worse, it felt like she had been lost for hours, even! Time didn't seem to flow so clearly here, and Hope had never been the type of girl who favored wearing a wristwatch.

She was starting to wish she were. At least, then, she would know how many hours of what little daylight was left she had, and this was excluding the storm approaching.

The tree branches above her head were so thick Hope couldn't see the moon, or—or whatever was up there now.

Everything in these woods was so confusing, and the horrible, thick fog that swooped in through the tree line and skirted around the trunks of the trees wasn't helping her stay on the path that would hopefully lead her home, either. Something was definitely off about these woods, yes.

In fact, the young twenty-eight-year-old was quite certain she'd never experienced anything like this in her life. Janey had pretty much warned her against going in here alone by herself, especially with a creep on the loose killing people, mostly young women like herself, and now, look at what had happened! She hadn't listened and was lost.

Hope couldn't quite explain it, but she couldn't quite shake the sense of dread that crept its way down her spine that somehow, in its own way, the forest was getting her lost on purpose. Hope couldn't understand _how_ a forest could purposefully lose people, nor _why_ it would do it.

Hope's light hazel eyes widened as she realized her overactive imagination was running away with her again.

The young woman gave her head a curt shake to clear her mind and stifled a low growl of annoyance in her throat.

"Get a hold of yourself, Hope," she murmured in a low voice, a pitiful attempt at a pep talk to herself. "This place isn't doing it on _purpose_. It's not like it's _magic_ or anything," she said, letting out a sigh and looking around.

Hope considered herself to be a young woman with a fairly decent sense of direction. She had been quite confident in her ability to make her way through the woods. All she had to do was follow the path in front of her. That was easy. She told herself she would be fine. But she _wasn't_. These woods made _no_ sense, and she was all very much lost, cold, confused, and a little bit nervous.

Just being lost all by itself was frustrating enough, but this forest had done more than get Hope lost. It was confusing the young woman, twisting the world around her into something warped and utterly unrecognizable from the moment she dared to take one step into the forest's path.

The woods were making Hope think she saw one thing or walked in a certain direction, when she had, in actuality, seen or done just the opposite of that. And nothing was more frustrating than finding out what seemed to be, in Hope's mind, very real, was in fact, a phantasm, a figment of her own excited imagination.

It almost felt as if she were walking while asleep, waking for only a few brief moments, long enough to be reminded that she was still indeed lost in these woods, but not long enough for Howell to know just where she was or what the bloody hell was happening to her in this place.

Hope bit down on her bottom lip, narrowing her eyes as she looked ahead, having to squint almost to see through the thick dense of fog that engulfed the forest.

Was that a person moving in the distance? Or a light? It was dim, yes, but it did seem to be there, quite far off across the woods. Light, to Hope, meant a way out of this place, or other people. Perhaps it was someone camping in these woods, though what sane chap or girl would want to camp in a dark forest like this was beyond her ability to comprehend, so Hope decided not to try to.

But was it even a light? Hope stared at it, faintly glowing in the distance. Well, whatever it was, it hadn't moved, and it was still there. If this forest was hellbent on tricking her, then it was being awfully persistent in doing so. This wasn't just an out of the corner of her eye trick.

Whatever was happening, it was right in front of her own two eyes, as plain as the nose on her face. It certainly didn't seem like a trick to Hope. It was a light, a real one.

It just had to be. That was her way out. "Hello?" she called out, taking cautious steps forward, her fingers curling into a fist over the strap of her black leather purse, fully prepared to pelt any suspicious persons that might pop out from behind the trunks of the trees with her bag if need be, not that it was going to do her much good, really.

Hope had nothing substantial inside her purse that held any kind of significant weight with which she could bludgeon any would-be-attackers with. Just a small champagne pink bifold wallet with a couple of notes in it, a pen, maybe a lip-gloss, and that was about it as to the contents of her bag. Nothing that would cause damage.

She looked back towards that strange white light, little more than a glowing ball, an orb, in the distance.

It seemed so far away now, further than before, which disheartened her and dampened her spirits greatly.

In the other direction, Hope could swear she saw a shadowy figure lurking in the distance, and just for a moment, she felt hopeful. Perhaps it was a hiker that could show her the way out of this wretched, accursed forest?

No… Hope winced and nervously took a step back as she realized this figure that seemed to be swiftly approaching her seemed much too large and imposing to just be a normal man. She swallowed a lump in her throat.

Did this stranger in the shadows _see_ her? It was quite possible, considering she was the only other living soul around for miles, at least it seemed that way to her.

Hope felt her lips part open in shock as her face drained of all colors as the shadowy figure stepped from the mist, revealing a towering, stocky, burly, brutish man.

When her eyes first landed on him, at first Hope couldn't process the information. Her mouth immediately went dry and her stomach swooped and churned as a coil in her gut twisted, and she felt as if her chest caved in terror as fear threatened to engulf her entire shaking body.

His body looked tall and strong in a blue jumpsuit that looked like something a janitor would wear to work.

_Oh my God, what if it's the one who's been killing people_?!

This thought plastered as a quiet vibration underneath Hope's skin and made it crawl, as she tried to open her mouth to scream, though nothing came out was a pitiful mewl of fear. Hope did the only thing she could think of as she heard the man emit a low, rumbling, warning growl from deep within the confines of her chest. She turned on the heels of her shoes and ran for it.

The young woman wanted to scream in a panic as she heard and felt the pounding of the man's heavy footfalls in his black work boots. Hope could hear twigs snapping underfoot under the man's heavy feet as the stranger in the woods swiftly closed in on her position.

As Hope Howell ran under low-hanging branches, her would-be-assailant followed close behind, all the while growling and snarling at her like some savage, rabid beast. He did not seem to speak at all, or perhaps he was not able to, not that it made much of a difference in this regard.

It did not change the fact that he was _chasing_ her! Her lungs burned with each frantic breath as Hope ran faster than she knew her body was capable of pushing itself in her valiant effort to put as much distance between herself and the stranger in the woods as utterly possible. Hope couldn't remember the last time she felt this sick before in her life, and the man's loud breaths rang out all around her. She was so tired, cold, and even more afraid.

But she had to keep running, even if her body protested. Hope knew if this stranger caught her, that was it. She would be doomed, but it didn't seem like outrunning this fellow, whoever he was, was going to be a possibility.

Nevertheless, the young administrative assistant from Cardiff kept running, only finally stopping when somehow, the man had made his way around to the other side, effectively blocking Hope's path, preventing her escape.

Hope stopped dead in her tracks then, gasping and heaving for air, looking around, letting out a pained whimper as the man swiftly and steadily stalked towards her, a listless expression in his brown eyes, staying silent.

_Silent_. A shudder went down her back as Hope swallowed down past a lump in her throat. She stifled a scream that threatened to escape her lips as the man's strong arm, his right arm, immediately shot out and latched itself around the column of her throat and began to squeeze. Hard. The sensation of fear bubbling in her chest was only worsened when the stranger violently shoved her up against the trunk of an old oak tree, the splinters of bark digging into her back, through the material of her black silk blouse.

" _Please_ ," Hope begged in a pitiful voice. Her tearful plea seemed to have no effect on the stranger, as the man merely watched her with that same disinterested expression on his pallid face, almost bored.

Hope reached up to her trembling hands and her fingernails clawed at the man's arm wound tightly around her throat like poison ivy did to a column, wanting to reach out to touch the sleeve of his jumpsuit, but didn't do it.

She did not know if doing so would set him off more. Her stomach clenched tightly when his hand, rough and calloused, hovered over her cheek. Hope could feel her body trembling beneath the stranger's firm grip here in the woods. His large, hairy hand rested on her cheek and his head tilted to the side, eyeing her like a curious dog would do whenever it had cornered its prey, backed into a corner.

His hand wandered down lower until it rested on the side of her neck, his thumb circling and resting on her windpipe. Hope swallowed hard, feeling her lips tremble.

"Please, sir, please don't _do_ this," she whispered, feeling tears prick and sting at the corners of her lids. She fumbled with shaking hands for the strap of her black bag around her shoulder, trying, and failing to dip into the main zippered compartment, thinking maybe if she offered this man whatever he wanted, money, whatever, he'd leave.

She was answered with nothing but silence. Silence. Hope was beginning to wonder whether or not this man could speak at all, or if he could even understand her. Nevertheless, Hope knew she had to try. It might be her only way out of this mess alive.

"I—if you want my bag, my—my purse, you can just _take_ it, I—I _swear_ , guy, I won't call the police at all, I _promise_ ," Hope begged tearfully, biting down on her bottom lip. Hope was stricken by the horrible thought that this creep was just savoring the moment of her death before he strangled her to death or perhaps stabbed her or something.

Hope took in a panicked breath when she felt the stranger begin to apply pressure, but not before his ironclad, tight grip around the column of her throat slackened, loosening just slightly, and Hope took advantage of the opportunity, sensing the man's hesitation.

Her lips parted open to speak, Hope did the only thing she could think of.

She began to scream.

* * *

**Eek. Boggarts definitely aren't friendly* creatures that's for sure, but fear not, Hope, maybe someone close by will hear your scream and come to your aid. Coming up in Ch. 3, everyone's favorite werewolf's father to the rescue!**


	3. Her Savior

**XXXX**

**CHAPTER THREE**

**XXXX**

**THE** air was chilled as the autumn leaves softly rode the bitter Welsh breeze, wafting through the edge of the forest and sending a chill down a single young man's spine as the figure, clad in a light brown, slightly tattered coat, a pair of respectable trousers, and a sweater vest, trudged through the fading woodland path at his feet, every so often mumbling a dark curse under his breath that made the young man thankful that he was alone in his endeavors.

For if the man in his thirties were with another companion and they were to hear such foul language roll-off in a languid manner from his tongue, his friends, what few he did possess at his job at the Ministry of Magic, would surely jinx him and engorge his tongue for saying it.

Bells sounded tenderly in the far-off distance from an old cathedral somewhere on the outskirts of Cardiff. The air around the figure clad in the tattered brown coat carried the faint scent of rainfall.

The man paused, shoving his white-boned fists into the pockets of his brown coat.

He had awakened not long ago from yet…another nightmare. The screams. The silhouette of a towering, hulking wolf. Her _face_. This mysterious woman with the locks of ash brown hair whose hair smelled like autumn.

Lyall couldn't quite explain it, but he could swear when he would wake from these dreams, the faint scent of whatever shampoo the stranger from his dreams used, the scent of apples, wafted through his flaring nostrils.

Lyall's tormented mind had been plagued with these nightmares for the last two weeks, always the same dream, and at this point in his life, he could count on it occurring. Like clockwork, almost.

He'd asked his colleague, well respected and famed Magizoologist Newt Scamander for potential advice on what these reoccurring dreams of his might mean, what to do about them, and the aging man had simply shot his young protégé a questioning look that bordered on slightly admonishing, telling Lyall in more or less quite _plain_ terms that he was no dream interpreter.

"And if I want to know what it means, drink some tea leaves and see the Divination Professor at Hogwarts," Lyall finished, grumbling old Newt's statement under his breath.

He scoffed, finding it difficult not to roll his eyes a bit, and returned his attention towards the edge of the woods.

Though he made no move to enter the forest, the very place that he had been summoned to, thanks to the nature of his job as something of a renowned authority on Non-Human Spirituous Apparitions, because he had spent his life post-graduation from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry studying poltergeists, dementors, and boggarts.

Lyall squeezed his eyes tightly shut, inhaling a deep shaking breath of crisp, cool evening air to calm his racing heart and his frantic breaths. No matter what, he simply could not get these ghastly images of his nightmares out of his head, no matter how hard he tried.

He could not help but wonder if Merlin had forsaken him so. In a groggy stupor, Lyall took a half step towards the forest's entrance.

His tired face was illuminated by the faint glow of the setting sun that was quickly becoming blocked by the encroaching storm clouds. A feeble ringing filled his fatigued ears.

At this point, for poor Lupin, there was nothing the young man would not give to stir awake, night after night, alone in his flat in the midst of Sussex.

The calm wind ruffled his wavy light brown hair gently, blowing his bangs off of his forehead. His lips, as he continued his pensive, thoughtful staring at the edge of the woods, held a thin line that only deepened by the second.

His mind was constantly tormented day in and day out by his horrid nightmares that felt so…so real, so _vivid_. And all over a woman that he'd never met. Growing increasingly frustrated with himself, thinking that he needed a distraction to tear his mind away from his plagued thoughts of the young woman who haunted his dreams, day in and day out the last two weeks, Lyall let out a haggard sigh and carded his fingers through his thick tuft of light wavy brown hair and took his first step into the forest that was rumored by the Muggles of this city to be haunted.

Lupin was smart enough not to look back.

* * *

Lyall Lupin's first thought upon entering the Welsh forest where therein was rumored to dwell a particularly nasty boggart that the Ministry of Magic had sent him to dispatch of, was that these woods by far had to be the most annoying thing the young thirty-year-old had ever experienced in his lifetime.

Traversing them alone was frustrating enough, and he was beginning to resent the current Minister of Magic for not allowing his partner to accompany him on site, but his duty called, and so, for better or worse, here he was. _Alone_.

Lyall frowned, stifling a growl of frustration, carding his fingers through his thick tuft of dark brown hair, as he tucked his wand back into his interior jacket pocket, feeling grateful that he'd had the good sense to dress like a Muggle for his outing towards these woods, not knowing if he would run into any of them that might be camping in this part of the forest.

He sincerely hoped that this would not be the case. Boggarts were bad enough in the wizarding world.

Lyall did not like to think of the havoc that might ensue if the dark creature that was rumored to live in these parts of the woods stumbled across an innocent, defenseless poor Muggle.

Lupin was not sure he would be able to explain away having to get rid of the boggart.

The thirty-year-old wizard and Ministry employee frowned and shook his head to himself. What was it about these damned Welsh woods that was causing him so much confusion? What made the air so sickeningly heavy and cold in here?

For a moment, he felt his heart sink to the pit of his stomach, wondering if perhaps there was a stray Dementor or two that dwelled in these parts as well.

If his suspicion turned out to be true, he was going to have a much bigger problem on his hands to deal with than the simple matter of repelling an otherwise harmless boggart. If it _were_ a Dementor, it would surely explain all of this damn mist that was clouding his vision, rendering it almost impossible to see more than two feet in front of him.

Lyall wracked his brain, feeling grateful for the time being he'd stowed his wand in his jacket pocket.

The fog was so thick as it swooped and skirted around the bases of the trunks of the trees, that even casting the Wand-Lighting Charm, _Lumos_ , would have made little difference.

His other guess, and he couldn't quite say for sure, was that the boggart who it was said by his colleagues back at the Ministry to have taken up residence in these woods, preying on unsuspecting hikers and poor lost souls, and the like, had probably emanated some dark, negative energy, a spell of its own of sorts, to make this entire forest nearly impassable to anyone but it.

It wasn't his _best_ theory, Lyall thought as he furrowed his brows, but nor was it completely out of the realm of possibility, either.

A theory was better than none, as his old, wizened colleague, Newt Scamander, was oft fond of telling him in their correspondence to one another via owl post these days.

With an aggravated sigh, thinking it felt as though he had been traipsing through these woods for hours on end and getting nowhere closer than he had been before to finding this Merlin-damned boggart, Lyall turned away and looked out into the trees, narrowing his eyes, and staring out into the foliage. Boggarts preferred dark enclosed spaces. Lyall frowned.

Well, it was certainly dark enough in this forest. Lyall felt his hands clench into fists. What kind of a forest was this?

He continued stomping his way in a straight line, hoping that the boggart would show itself soon once it was able to detect his human presence. Gradually, his pace slowed as he realized just how utterly hopeless this was. The creature could be anywhere.

It caused him to wish to curse the entire forest for making him come here when he was already in something of a sour mood, running on fumes, and wanting nothing more than to go to sleep.

Just as he was about to start throwing things in anger, Lyall heard something which caused his keen hearing to perk up. It was a small sound, a sound so faint, he wasn't even certain he'd heard it at first.

Almost like that of a whimper. He listened closer. There was certainly some sort of commotion going on in these damned dark, cursed woods for sure. Lyall could plainly hear it, no matter how quiet it was, but where…?

Though almost as if on cue, a loud, piercing, earth-shattering scream rent the air that turned his blood to ice in his veins.

A woman's voice. The scream tore through Lupin like a shard of glass. He felt his eyes widen and pulse quicken in his veins as he bolted to his feet, his heart thudded like a rock rattling in a box. The scream came again, desperate, terrified…dying…

Well. It would appear that he had found his boggart. His ears strained for more sounds, more clues as to where the woman's screams had come from, listening for anything that might give away this woman's position.

Whoever they were, they were in grave danger... A shout of pain, the cry of that voice again, or noise from the boggart if he were the culprit behind the woman's screams…

Lyall had no clue as to what he would do when he got there, just that he had to get there, and _fast_ …

Lyall narrowed his eyes and stared off into the distance, trying to see any indication that the boggart was nearby. He still only saw trees, vines, and mist, but the screaming continued, so he did his best to follow the noise, breaking into a frantic sprint.

He couldn't see the woman, but he could hear her, whoever she was, and that was the best that Lyall could hope for.

"Hello?" he called out as he made his way towards what appeared to be a break in the forest, a clearing of sorts. "Is someone hurt?"

" _Please_!" the young woman's voice screamed back, faint, but audible enough. " _S—someone help me! Please_!" she yelled.

Without even hesitating, Lyall immediately drew his wand upon reaching the clearing in the forest. He'd found the boggart.

It had assumed the shape of a hulking, towering man and had backed the young woman against the trunk of a tree, savagely growling and snarling, making lunging movements towards her as though the creature meant to strangle her.

Lyall's blood boiled. The boggart, sensing another human presence nearby, stilled in its movements, staring now at Lyall Lupin, its gaze fixated solely right on Lyall's having seemingly forgotten the girl.

There was a wrinkle in Lyall's nose that had nothing to do with a coming sneeze, his muscles tight, jaw clenched tightly shut.

His anger towards what this boggart was doing to this defenseless young witch, who seemed to have lost her wand, was like a vexing of the soul for what Lupin felt was not at all human.

It was twisted and distorted but it was something strong. It burned so bad like fire lacing through his veins and creeping up his spine as his posture became stiff and rigid as he stood now a mere few feet away from the terrifying form of the woman's boggart.

His skin was a sore-looking red, but all Lyall could feel was hatred towards this demonic entity, this accursed creature that fed on peoples' worst fears and became manifestations of their nightmares.

Lyall was intoxicated with no emotion he had no intention of ever feeling, the acidity of it was residing in the pit of his churning stomach, waiting to be spat out in foul and vulgar words the young witch cowering against the tree, would surely stare at him for saying, except Lyall wasn't going to say them, no.

No, he was going to scream them with every ounce of breath that dwelled in his lungs, and if the boggart wanted to prove to the Ministry employee that it wasn't good and stupid, then it had better—

Though the moment the creature lunged again for Hope, was the breaking point of Lyall Lupin's patience.

Pulling out his wand from the pocket of his brown, tattered jacket, Lyall quickly waved his wand and the towering form of the hulking man in front of the woman promptly vanished, and in its place was now a field of mushrooms, edible ones you could eat, at the woman's feet.

Giving his head a curt nod of satisfaction, he turned towards the young woman, whose face had paled rapidly.

Lowering his wand, stuffing it back into the pocket of his coat, he cautiously approached the young woman, who was collapsed into a kneeling position on her knees, curled in on herself, and seemingly sobbing.

Lyall could not make out the details of the witch's face, but his heartstrings gave a pang of pity for the girl, whoever she was.

The thirty-year-old wizard did not hesitate to run towards her, kneeling into a crouch in front of her, while still maintaining a respectful distance.

He did not know just how badly her boggart had frightened her, and there was no telling how the witch might react in her already panicked state.

His fingers gave a spasmodic twitch as he itched to touch her, and gingerly, he crept as close as he possibly dared for a better look, all the while he looked the woman up and down, silently assessing her condition, looking her over for any signs of physical injuries she might have sustained during her encounter.

"Are you hurt?" he questioned, extending his hand for the woman to take as he himself rose to his feet, wincing at the stiffness in his knees, given he'd been walking for what felt like hours. He imagined the poor thing was scared out of her wits.

Lyall wondered just how long the woman had been out walking through these woods, seemingly alone with no one around. It must not have been too long, judging by the state of her clothing, but these woods, especially with boggarts and any number of Dark Creatures lurking in the shadows, could make it feel like the minutes turned into hours, the hours into long days.

It wouldn't have been the first time Lyall had completely lost track of time in this wretched place. The woman could have been lost for hours by now, which would explain away her fear.

Her face was turned to the side, rendering it difficult for Lyall to make out any details of her face, though he knew enough by the tears rolling down her cheeks and dripping onto the leaves at her feet that her tears could be a result of any unseen injuries.

Lyall took it upon himself to make sure the witch was okay.

"Are you all right?" he asked again, a second time, and when his question finally elicited a response from the young witch, and she blearily turned her head towards the direction of the sound of his voice to look her savior in the eyes, Lyall felt his breaths catch in his throat and his heart almost come to standstill.

Two youthful, almond-shaped light hazel eyes were staring back at Lupin, widening in shock and fear as Lupin stared back.

Lyall blinked and felt his throat tighten, just as he had been about to speak. For this creature who he had just unceremoniously saved from a lurking, disgusting boggart was not at all what he had pictured.

This wasn't some middle-aged witch with fading hair and a wary expression on lined and weathered features, as he had perhaps first assumed the woman to be. No. This girl was young, looking to be a few years younger than he was.

She was…she was _beautiful_. And then, it hit him. It was the very same woman from his dreams.

Lyall jumped, startled so bad he almost fumbled his wand in his pocket, and if he would have dropped it in front of her, he'd have to explain himself to this woman, and that, he was not sure he was ready to do that.

As she rose to her feet, hesitantly accepting his hand after a moment or two of staring at Lyall's outstretched hand in a stunned stupor, cringing at the unexpected jolt of electricity that passed between them the moment their fingers touched, she quickly retreated back into herself and pulled her hand back the second she righted herself.

Her loose light brown hair cascaded in thick, wavy layers, the ends of it just grazing past the tips of her shoulders, framing a pale, oval face and brought attention to her scared, hazel eyes.

This girl, whoever she was, continued to stare up at Lupin with impossibly huge eyes, which were brimming with tears as the young witch gasped in quick, frantic breaths, surges of adrenaline from her encounter with the boggart still flooding her system.

"Are you hurt?" Lyall repeated, furrowing his brows as he allowed his inquisitive gaze to scan over the young witch's features, hoping his gaze didn't linger over the beautiful woman any longer than was necessary, not wanting this stranger to get the wrong idea. "You must tell me if you are. Do you need a Healer?" he asked, watching as the woman continued to breathe in and out frantically, almost clawing at Lyall's sweater and fistfuls of his jacket with her small hands, as though scared Lyall might vanish if the young woman didn't keep a firm hold on her.

"Sir, wh—where did he go? The...the man!" The witch's voice trembled as she stared up into Lyall's eyes, having to crane her neck to do it. Lyall could feel the young woman's hands were shaking as they grasped frantically onto the sleeves of his tattered jacket. "I—I can't breathe," the woman gasped in a pained voice.

Lupin frowned and let his eyes quickly scan over the small, panicking, beautiful young woman again. Boggarts could not cause physical harm to a human being, it was utterly impossible.

Had she perhaps inhaled some sort of poison from one of the strange, cursed plants in these Dark woods? What was wrong?

"You're all right, it's gone now, miss, and it won't be coming back anytime soon," he spoke slowly and calmly in what he hoped was a reassuring voice. "It was only a boggart," he quickly explained, hoping to put her unfounded fear that it would return at ease, the corners of his mouth twitching in a soft smile as he allowed his gaze to drift towards the mushrooms at their feet.

If it was at all possible, the woman's eyes widened and then became glassy and unfocused, the look of confusion on her face evident as her mind struggled to process Lyall Lupin's words.

"Wh— _what_?" she stammered, her breaths little more than a low, breathy squeak as she continued to gasp for air, her lungs burning with the biting, cold fresh oxygen in the woods around. "What's...what's a boggart?" she asked, her eyes widening even further.

Lyall paused for a moment, feeling his heartstrings give another pang of pity as he quickly realized this beauty before him was not a witch, as he had first suspected her to be, but a Muggle.

_She has never seen an act of magic before_ , he rationalized.

He stared at her, and the young woman nervously smiled at him as she reached up a shaking hand and tossed her hair back over her shoulders. His heart pounded wildly against his chest as he wracked his brain for something to say to this young Muggle.

He did not want her to move away. Lyall could not explain it, but he was hit with a sudden, almost overwhelming urge to be close to her. It was a strange feeling, a confusing sensation. The pressure built. His heart still pounded in his chest.

She turned away though he quickly followed, wanting to make sure the young woman was all right. He tilted his head again, his eyes darting across her face.

_You can't let her walk home alone_ , his conscience piped up. _Offer to escort her home. See she returns safely back_.

_Take care of her_ , Lupin thought as he nodded slowly to himself.

At the very least, the beginnings of understanding were beginning to form slowly in his brain as he looked at the woman.

Finally, he managed to regain control of his voice, and he could think of only one thing to ask, aside from if she was hurt.

"What's your name?" he asked, deflecting her question, not wanting to frighten the young Muggle woman with talk of boggarts, or even reveal to her the existence of the magical world, much less the plain fact that he, Lyall Lupin, was a half-blood.

Lyall could not be sure, as the woman regarded him in silence for a moment, a cautious expression of trepidation and doubt etched upon her attractive features.

Her lips pursed in a thin line and she bit down on her bottom lip in a way that Lupin found truly adorable and endearing, and possibly flirtatious.

The young Muggle woman whose hazel eyes had somehow managed to entrap his gaze and hold him captive there must have eventually decided that Lyall posed no threat to her, as her eyes desperately searched his for the truth, and he breathed out a relieved breath when the corners of her lips tugged upward into a soft, white smile that sent his heart careening into wild palpitations against his chest until Lyall thought it might burst.

When she spoke to him, she only offered one word, but for Lyall, it was more than enough.

"Hope."

* * *

**Yay! Glad Lyall came to the rescue! Coming up in Ch. 4, Lyall and Hope walk through the woods and Lyall is concerned for Hope's well-being.**


	4. To Offer Comfort

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**CHAPTER 4**

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**FOR** a long moment as Hope Howell stared at the stranger who had saved her life, she was frighteningly disoriented, and more than just a little bit confused and utterly terrified. She looked around to her left and right for the stranger in the woods from before that had almost assaulted her, but the man was nowhere to be found.

There were a few terrible moments of panic as it seized her heart, causing the now-little more than throbbing mass of corded muscle pounding relentlessly against her chest, as her fear threatened to engulf her.

Her concern took hold of her heart and it fluttered painfully in her chest as she continued looking around, at anywhere but at the handsome new stranger who had just now saved her life, though she felt his piercing dark gaze on her as she turned her head, burning the back of her skull better than a branding iron for cattle to the slaughterhouse.

She swallowed and looked along the edges of the tree lines, as though half-expecting the other stranger to materialize in front of the two of them out of thin air, but nothing more happened.

Hope emanated a tense, shaking, relieved breath through her nostrils, feeling the mounting pressure and unbelievable tension in her shoulders dissipate. As Hope's gaze lingered on the trees, flashes of the chase a few moments ago came to her mind.

The feeling of seeing the strange, hulking man seemingly just…appear out of thin air from behind the trees, standing there before her, a hungered, wild, unhinged look in his piercing eyes of green. A man…that could not adequately be described.

She shivered. Terror, oh, yes, terror remained in Hope's heart, despite her best efforts to calm herself. Her brain screamed at her to act, telling her how could she possibly trust this new chap who'd saved her life?

What if he was just as bad as _him_?!

This was an entirely different man, and all she knew of him, which was admittedly very little, only that he seemed a few years older than her, and in his early thirties, if Hope had to hazard a guess at what his age might be, as he'd saved her.

Out of the corner of her eye, Hope noticed this man watching her, interested, though trying to be inconspicuous. She noted how dark his eyes were, like a bar of rich dark chocolate. He was too nervous to eye her for long. His wide, round eyes darted from her to the forest floor at their feet.

However, the glances Lyall did see of her were…really something. Beams of moonlight shone down through the thick canopy of trees, casting a faint halo around her hair, which, in Lyall's mind, only made her that much more beautiful.

He hesitantly lifted his slightly shaking hand and rested it on her shoulder. He flinched, but only because Hope did so the moment his hand came into contact with her shoulder.

The dark-eyed man glanced from her to the ground, parting his lips to speak. "Are you injured, Hope?"

Hope shook her head, though even as she said it, a white-hot flaring pain shot up her wrist, up to her spine. She grimaced, twisting, and contorting her face with pain that immediately caused this stranger to raise his dark brown eyebrows so far up onto his forehead that they almost disappeared into his hairline as he merely looked at Hope.

"N—no, sir, thanks to you arriving when you had. If you hadn't…" Hope paused, not repressing the shudder that went down her back as bile rose in her mouth at the thought of what almost happened to her had this man not come when he had, "I don't like to think what would have happened," she whispered, breathing out a shaking breath and forced a laugh that felt entirely too strained, causing her eyes to crinkle, and not at all genuine. "I'm okay. A little light-headed, and…scared…wh—where did that man go? H—he…"

But her voice trailed off as she looked around frantically to the left and right, whirling on the heel of her boot, still actively searching for any signs of the other man. The man with the thick tuft of wavy light brown hair made a noise from deep within his chest, a rumbling sound that could only be described as a growl of anger that immediately sent a tremor of fear down Hope's spine.

"He won't be coming _near_ you again, Hope," he said, turning his head back to regard the young brunette and offering the young woman a soft smile as he cautiously approached her, still keeping his hand firmly planted on her shoulder, giving it a light, reassuring squeeze that was intended to convey some small measure of comfort to Hope.

Lyall could see for himself that the young woman remained to be convinced. He pressed forward, wanting her to understand that he was not about to let any further harm come to her.

"Did he hurt you? I don't think I've ever seen a man quite so…intimidating," he muttered darkly under his breath, remembering how Hope had said something about how the man that had almost attacked her was so incredibly big and scary-looking, glancing down with a disinterested look at the mushrooms at their feet, stomping on one of them with his shoe for good measure.

Not that it was going to do much good at all, really. You couldn't kill a boggart, as it was a non-corporeal entity, but he could at least, entrap it when the young Muggle wasn't looking directly at him.

He just needed her to look away for a moment, and then this boggart would trouble this forest of Cardiff no longer. Lyall wracked his brain, thinking it would not be in his best course of action, considering the young woman's already frightened state, to further attempt to discuss that the 'man' she had actually encountered, was in fact, a disgusting, filthy, wretched boggart.

The fact that shapeshifters existed, let alone her world was parallel to the wizarding community, and the man that she was now conversing with, was in fact, a half-blooded wizard, would be entirely too much for Hope Howell to take in all at once, no matter how intelligent she seemed to be to the thirty-year-old wizard.

 _No. Best not to mention it, for now_ , he concluded, returning his gaze to the girl. Lyall looked at the young woman with worried eyes and continued speaking. It then occurred to him he had asked the young Muggle her name but had not told Hope his.

"My name is Lyall, Hope. Lyall Lupin. Are you hurt? I mean to say, are you able to come along with me? Can you walk at all? Are you okay to follow me out of these woods? I'd be more than happy to escort you home."

Hope nodded mutely. The stranger, who she supposed was not a stranger to her anymore now that he had told her his name, returned the gesture, and glanced towards the woods, his grip on her shoulder loosening slightly, until he finally, reluctantly, let go of her.

For a split fraction of a second, she wished he hadn't, though was not given a chance to ponder this strange feeling as the man continued speaking, looking away for a moment to squint and try to peer his way through the dense fog in front of them.

"I think we should get moving. I think I need to take you someplace where that man won't see you. He _won't_ follow us," he reassured Hope, glancing sideways at the beauty out of the corner of his eyes, registering how her face paled a shade in utter terror.

"Thank you, sir," Hope whispered in a faint, hoarse voice and allowed the stranger in the woods to lead her away from the clearing, hoping that trusting this new man was not a mistake.

He merely grunted wordlessly before swiveling his head to look at the young woman with an interesting gleam in his eye that Hope Howell wasn't sure she could at all place. "You might as well call me by my name, Hope, now that we aren't strangers anymore," mumbled Lyall as he watched the young woman purposefully lag behind him as he led her away.

"I—" Hope started to say, but Lyall Lupin cut her off.

"Go on, say it. I'd like to hear you say it, even if it's just once," he encouraged, just a hint of stubbornness in his voice, his face unmasked with expectation. "It's the _least_ you can do for me, considering I just saved your life," he offered, a slightly teasing tone to his lilt now. "Say it."

Taking a few prepared breaths, Hope curled her fingers into a fist over the strap of her purse, fully ready to pelt the man with it if he proved himself to be just as unstable as the last one, finding herself unwittingly filled up with a horrible embarrassment in her chest that sent its incredible warmth spiraling through her chest and setting her whole face on fire.

"Lyall," she whispered, and it was odd. It felt as though the name belonged to someone else. She supposed it might have been a more special moment, was she not still reeling from what had almost just happened to her.

Hope and Lyall did not speak much as Lyall seemed to expertly navigate his way through the twisting, winding woodland path at their feet.

"That…is a beautiful name," she said, lifting her gaze to meet his. Hope watched as the surprised man in his early thirties blinked hard and fast as his blush crept further over his cheeks.

His hand crept its way to his cheek to rest over his blush as he tried to hide his elatedness. His heart was hammering inside his broad chest, and he was afraid the young Muggle woman could hear it for herself. He took a hitched breath as he dared to meet her gaze.

No matter how long Lyall gazed at this celestial-like creature, he could not find a single shred of distaste or fear in her brown eyes. His head felt like it was spinning from all the blood rushing to his cheeks.

He really needed a moment to himself to get himself under control, but considering the present company, that was out of the question for right now, Lyall quickly recognized. He gave a gruff-sounding cough to clear his throat and pointedly looked away.

Whether or not Hope had noticed it remained to be seen. Hope, for her part, did not know what to say.

At this point, the young brunette was feeling a rather strong sense of regret and overwhelming guilt, which was causing her as she followed obediently along in Lyall's footsteps, to wring her hands together painfully and bite down on her lip.

She followed close behind as the man attempted to lead them out of this wretched forest that Hope had had more than enough of to last her an entire lifetime. Among the twisted, gnarled trees with groping branches, there seemed to be a path of sorts, which they were presently walking on, but it didn't really look like the same path that she had begun to follow when she'd entered into the woods earlier, which was a bit disconcerting to Hope.

This path was quite questionable. The young administrative assistant forced herself to drag her feet along as she made sure to keep her eyes on Lyall Lupin. The last thing she wanted was to become lost again.

She didn't know if Lupin knew where he was going at all, but just being with someone else who seemed to mean her no harm was enough to make Hope feel much better about her current predicament of being lost.

There were few feelings worse than the feeling of being all alone and completely and utterly lost with no sense of directions of how to get back, so for now, she was perfectly content to walk alongside this strange man, even if it did not feel to her like they were making any viable progress in getting out.

Hope furrowed her brows when it looked like her feet were walking backward again, regardless of the fact she was sure she was moving forward.

Allowing a panicked little gasp to escape her lips, Hope attempted to move even faster, staring down at her boots in bewilderment as they only moved faster in what felt like the wrong direction, her legs no longer taking directions from her mind, much to Hope's horror. Before she could call out for Mr. Lupin to help her, she found she'd barreled right into the poor man's back, hard enough to cause the man to stumble forward as his equilibrium was off-balance, and almost succeeded in tripping over a large tree root.

Hope found herself lying sprawled on her back on the ground, with Lyall Lupin staring down his nose at her.

"Slow down, Hope," Lupin warned as he arched a dark eyebrow at Hope, a slightly admonishing expression on his handsome features, which caused Hope to blush like mad.

"I…" Hope stammered, beginning to explain herself, confusion laced throughout her words. "I thought that I…I was, well, walking backward, a—and I looked down at my feet for just a moment," the young brunette paused, knowing she sounded like a babbling idiot in front of this handsome man who had saved her life but still feeling compelled to explain herself to Lupin. "They—they looked like they were moving in the wrong direction, a—and I—I panicked. I—if I didn't know any better, Mr. Lupin, I'd say this forest is _magic_ ," Hope breathed, slowly sitting up, her hand on her brow.

She watched with knitted brows as Lupin made a motion to grab onto her shoulder with his arm but must have thought better of it. There was an odd, unreadable expression on his face, a hardened look in his eyes.

Hope swallowed and forced herself to remain calm, which was easier said than done. Her stomach sank as his head tilted as he looked at her, where she sat rather ungracefully on the ground. His shoulders straightened and he grew even taller if such a thing was at all possible. Hope's brown eyes widened.

"I—I'm sorry, th—that's _stupid_. Forests aren't _magic_ , Mr. Lupin," she stammered nervously. "I—I'm…babbling again. Ugh. Stupid me," she moaned, trying, and failing to ignore the light pink blush rapidly spreading onto her cheeks as he continued to stare at her. "That's _dumb_ , isn't it?"

Hope bit down on her bottom lip as she looked towards Lupin, waiting for Lyall's response. The young woman half-expected Lyall to yell at her, to tell her that yes, she was stupid for thinking a forest could be magic, of all ridiculous claims, to tell her to watch where she was going, to stop being a daft bimbo and start using her head, but the man in front of her did no such thing.

Instead, Lyall merely narrowed his dark brown eyes, which were twinkling, and offered Hope a very small smile, the corners of his lips tugging upwards.

"Not at all. It just means…you have an active imagination," he said after a long pause, where he hesitated, which Hope thought odd, but was not given time to question it. "It's all right. I want to get out of this forest, just as you," he laughed, kneeling down slightly, offering his hand down to Hope, and helping her to her feet. "It's maddening, isn't it?"

Hope offered a soft, albeit nervous chuckle as Lupin helped her up, his gaze lingering over her form for perhaps longer than was appropriate, but unlike earlier, when it had been her boss, Steve, or to a lesser extent, Janey's son, Robert, whenever the man stopped by the office to visit his mom, Hope found that she did not mind at all. "It most certainly is," she agreed with a smile.

"Stay close to me," Lyall instructed in a firm voice. "And don't watch your feet while you're walking, Hope. Just focus on following my lead, yes?"

The young brunette nodded and began to follow after her new companion once more, but quickly came to a halt when she heard a noise, a noise which sounded an awful look like a breeze, a sudden gust of wind.

"Lupin," she whispered. "Do you hear that…?" Hope fell silent.

The man paused as well, straining his ears to listen for more sounds. "It's the wind," he noted calmly when he heard the disturbance Hope had spoken off. Hope breathed out a relieved breath, feeling grateful that Lupin had heard the sound too. That meant it wasn't simply her own mind playing tricks on her. If Lyall Lupin heard the same thing she did, it must be real…

Lyall glanced behind them briefly, likely to be sure the boggart hadn't re-materialized and was hellbent on following the pair of them. It wasn't. He emanated a tense exhale through his nostrils and motioned for Hope to take a seat on a nearby boulder in a forest clearing.

It perhaps wouldn't be the most comfortable spot, but it was better than having her sit on the cold, wet ground and risk Hope getting a chill.

"Why don't you take a seat, Hope?" he offered, turning away slightly and, slowly and methodically, pulling his wand out of his coat pocket, murmuring the incantation under his breath to quickly light a fire for warmth. He did not want this young woman catching her death in this cold.

Hope nodded, and while she was getting herself situated into a more comfortable position, Lyall worked to get a fire going to provide warmth.

"There," he muttered, stalling for a few minutes longer than necessary, using his hands and feigning through the motions of lighting a fire the Muggle way. "That ought to warm us up a bit and give us a little light," he spoke in what he hoped was a comforting tone, turning back to Hope. "May I take a look at you?" he offered, and, as Hope nodded, strode back towards the boulder, and knelt in front of the young woman and took the girl's small hands in his own larger, rougher calloused ones. "He had a pretty hard hold on you, didn't he, Hope?" he questioned, furrowing his brows.

Lyall immediately looked down at his hands, and then swiveled his head to stare at Hope's. "Your hands, they're all smooth," his voice low and deep, and before Hope could think about doing anything, he reached out and allowed the pad of his finger to ghost along a small scar on her knuckle.

Hope's cheeks burned, saying nothing, for there was really nothing to say that came to her mind, and besides, she couldn't bring herself to say a single word, not when Mr. Lupin was, intentionally or unintentionally, caressing her hands, letting his fingers trace against her own, rough against smooth.

"You have soft hands. So smooth, and pretty," Lupin muttered, as he continued to inspect her hands with a gleaming sense of curiosity and intrigue, but with no intentions at all. As the man seemed naive, obliviously unaware of the expression on Hope Howell's face. Hope stared down at her boots, as she often did whenever she was avoiding conversation.

She felt so…so wretched and useless. She should have been smarter and stronger. She should have known better not to take a walk in the woods close to dark, and _now_ look! Not only had she almost gotten herself _killed_ , but this man, who was essentially a stranger to her, had been forced to save her life. Not that Hope wasn't grateful, but she should have tried to do more, be smarter about it.

Hope inhaled a sharp breath as Lyall Lupin gingerly pushed the sleeve of her black silk blouse out of the way as the young woman still remained silent, at a loss for words as to what to say.

"It doesn't appear that anything is broken, so that's good news," he murmured in a low, husky-sounding voice as he ran his fingers gingerly over the young woman's wrists and her forearms. "Though I can see several scratches and bruises coming up on your skin already. Do they hurt?"

Hope shrugged in what she hoped was a nonchalant manner. "I'm okay," she muttered with a sigh, but still refusing to meet the man's stare.

She did not want to risk becoming emotional in front of a young man she'd only just met.

Speaking too much about what had happened would probably only result in more tears, and Hope decided she had embarrassed herself enough by this point by Lupin having to save her life.

"What happened, Hope?" Lyall questioned, knowing full well what the bloody hell had happened to the young woman, who was looking quite distraught, not wanting to press the issue further, but feeling like it was imperative he do so. He wanted to keep her talking. Perhaps engaging her in a conversation, however unpleasant it might be, would keep her from going into a panic attack.

Without even thinking, Lyall moved his right hand so it rested on the young woman's knee and leaned forward to make eye contact.

Hope flinched, considering turning her head away, so she wouldn't have to look into the kind and gentle man's eyes.

The man's care and concern over her physical well-being just might break and shatter the fragile hold Hope Howell had managed to regain control over her raging emotions.

But the young woman also felt that not meeting Lupin's questioning gaze would only make things even more awkward for herself, and would only make Lyall worry about her more, and she did not want her new acquaintance to suffer any more on her account, so Hope looked up and forced a smile that she did not feel genuine about at all and stared at Lyall.

"I'm _fine_ , Lupin, honest," Hope lied through her teeth. "Just tired and shaken up." She flinched and bit down on her bottom lip, wanting to pull her gaze away and look anywhere else—at anything—but Lyall Lupin.

But she _couldn't_. It was as if his narrowed dark brown eyes had ensnared her in some sort of trap, and as if by wizard's curse, had spelled her.

Lyall Lupin did not look at all convinced by Hope's vague response. He frowned, the edges of his lips tugging downward into a heavy, angry scowl.

"I could tell that bog—that _man_ ," he quickly corrected himself, hoping she did not see the light blush that crept its way onto his cheeks, "was trying to hurt you. You don't need to lie in order to spare my feelings, miss. There's no use. I can see that it—that _monster_ , he did _something_ to you…"

Lyall reached towards Hope's right cheek, his frown deepening as he caught sight of a vicious purple welt, a bruise rapidly forming underneath her right eye. He wondered if perhaps she'd run into a stray tree branch when she had been attempting to run away from her boggart's form.

The moment his hand reached out towards her face, the movement caused the young woman to flinch away slightly. Lyall froze in place for a moment, looking into Hope Howell's almond-shaped hazel eyes before touching the pads of his fingers gently to the young woman's face, wiping away her tears.

Hope continued to keep her gaze fixated on the ground as she battled with her emotions, fighting to keep them from bubbling to the surface and boiling over. She adamantly refused to make eye contact with Lupin just yet, as her features would surely betray her emotional anguish.

"Are you all right, Hope?" Lyall spoke lightly, resting his hand, almost hovering it on Hope's shoulder. Hope did not answer him, as she was too focused on blinking back an onset of salty, briny tears, feeling certain the wretched little teardrops would escape from her lids at any given moment. "Hope…please answer me. Are you hurt? You can tell me the truth. I can try my best to mend any injuries that you might have. I'm no doctor, I'm afraid, but I'm adequate enough. There's no shame in telling me if you're hurt."

Hope blinked, feeling her bottom lip tremble as she contemplated answering Lyall Lupin's questions. Her arms and wrists did hurt, as it so happened, but she knew they weren't broken. Just bruised and scratched.

Her cheek and jaw hurt, again, victims of the branches of the trees, but the only marks she would bear from any of it would be her bruises. It was admittedly nothing that Lyall could mend, only time held that power. And her emotional pain at what had happened was worse, far more difficult to quell, and she doubted her savior in the woods could help with that, too.

"You're shaking," Lyall pointed out by way of response as he leaned down even more to better look into the young woman's eyes. "You're hurt."

With that, Hope could no longer suppress what she felt inside.

As a pained, choking half-sob escaped her lips, she reached out for Lupin, who looked admittedly surprised at first, but did not hesitate to envelop the young woman in a hug, rubbing soft circles into her back, speaking soothing words, almost whispering them into the shell of her right ear, trying to provide what little modicum of comfort that he could to assuage her fear.

He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, gently rubbing her arm. Despite the heaviness in her stomach, it fluttered at the feeling of her body pressed against his.

She sunk into the warmth of his side, appreciative of the simple gesture. His embrace was warm, and his big, strong arms seemed very protective when wrapped around her frail body.

The world around Hope Howell melted away as she squeezed him back, not wanting the moment to end. Hope had been hugged before, but never like this since her parents passed.

There was something so warm, something that felt right, smelt right. She let her body sag, her muscles become loose. He gave her the respect of an equal but cradled her like a cherished child.

In that embrace, she felt her worries lose their keen sting and her optimism raise its head from the dirt. 

Perhaps the hope had been there all along, but without some care, it was trapped, like beautiful crystals in a stone.

Their hug at the moment felt like the beginnings of a secret moment hidden away from the rest of the world, an unspoken acknowledgment of a growing relationship, whether that was friendship, or perhaps something more, Hope Howell and Lyall Lupin could not say for sure what it was.

Thoughts of leaving the forest were momentarily banished from Hope's mind, and for the moment, all she could focus on was their hug.

But Hope did not yet know that there were other forces, dark forces at work who wished to tear the two of them apart.

And if either Hope or Lyall would have broken apart from the embrace and looked to the left, they would have seen the huge, hulking form of werewolf Fenrir Greyback, lurking in the shadows, a hungry look igniting in his wild piercing blue eyes…

* * *

**Leave it to Greyback to ruin what is otherwise the beginning of a tender moment. Ch. 5 flits back to Modern-Day Lyall and checks in on Teddy and Remus and Tonks. I kind of decided to do what I like to call the 'Princess Bride' approach, where the grandpa, in telling the story to his grandchild, sometimes interrupts in the middle of storytelling and gives it a nice balance I think, of Hope/Lyall and our lovely Remadora. Stay tuned for more!**


	5. Mounting Tensions

**XXXX**

**CHAPTER 5**

**XXXX**

**TEDDY** eyed his grandfather with wide brown eyes brimming with wonder as the firelight continued to flicker along his grandfather's face, bathing half of it in light and the other half in shadow. It gave Lyall Lupin for a moment, a truly formidable look.

He gulped nervously, casting a somewhat apprehensive and skittish look towards his father, whose expression had hardened slightly at the mention of Fenrir Greyback. He didn't know much about the werewolf in question, only that he was a very bad man, a Dark wizard, who was dead now, a few years back in Azkaban, had received the Dementor's Kiss for attacking small children, and that Greyback had been the one to attack his daddy when he was Teddy's age.

Teddy could feel a sheen of sweat start to perspire along his forehead as he cast nervous glances towards Grandpa and then to Dad.

"Daddy? A—are you okay? S—say something, what's wrong?" he mumbled, tripping over his words, a hint of unease laced throughout his quiet, shy tone, unable to decide if he liked or not the look on his father's face.

His mother furrowed her brows in a light frown, moving her left hand to rest over the top of Dad's, and bathed in the glowing embers from the roaring fireplace, Teddy stared as the gold of their rings glinted in the light, the only source of light in Grandpa's living room alongside a few lighted candles that Dad had gotten up to place in the windowsill a bit ago.

"Remus?" his mom questioned into the void, her soft voice laced with concern as she leaned forward in her seat to better look him in the eyes. "You all right?" she murmured, reaching up to give her husband an affectionate squeeze of his shoulder, hoping it relayed some small comfort.

Teddy's heart was pounding loudly in his chest as his father continued to look at Grandpa in a way that Teddy wasn't sure he liked. A muscle in Dad's jaw twitched, and Dad hadn't spoken much at all since Grandpa had paused in the story, getting to the part where Greyback had been spying on them in the woods and had needed a moment to collect himself, his voice warbling, and breaking a little bit. As Dad shifted his spot on the couch, Teddy noticed Dad seemed visibly disappointed, but still hadn't responded to either Mom or him at all.

Dad was angry. Teddy could see that quite plainly for himself. When Grandpa had paused in the midst of his storytelling, needing a break in speaking to regain his breath and a moment to collect his thoughts, Daddy hadn't exactly spoken of his anger, but Teddy knew his father well enough by now, he was five years old, going on six next year, after all, to know when Daddy was upset.

The man's eyes were filled with betrayal and anger, but why that happened to be, Teddy didn't know. He bit his bottom lip, glancing towards Mum for confirmation. She didn't know, either. Mum was just as confused as Teddy was, but Grandpa needed to explain himself.

One glance back over at Dad from his and Mum's spot on the sofa was more than enough. Daddy was _furious_.

Teddy cringed, hoping the full moon wasn't causing Dad to become too upset with Grandpa, for whatever reason was currently making him mad, and he especially didn't want to get on his father's bad side when coming down off his 'cycles,' as Mum was fond of calling Dad's transformations a few times a month.

" _Dad_ ," muttered Remus in a low voice when he'd finally managed to regain control of his voice. "Why did you never _tell_ me about this part?" he snapped, unable to keep the note of antagonizing hurt and betrayal from his voice.

"I did not want you to worry, son," Grandpa mumbled, sounding utterly ashamed. It did not escape the five-year-old boy's notice how his grandfather's voice sounded much more subdued, less animated than before, and he seemed to have trouble meeting Dad's piercing gaze.

"So, you think that by keeping the fact that you encountered Greyback with my mother in the woods, was what, _protecting_ me?!" His words escaped his voice as a sound that Teddy could only describe as a low, almost wolfish growl, though in actuality, Dad sounded more hurt and betrayed than anything else.

Though before Teddy could open his mouth to speak, to plead with Grandpa to continue telling his story, Grandpa opened his mouth and spoke up, interjecting and cutting off Remus from whatever the younger man had been about to say to him next.

"Remus, before you get angry," Lyall spoke up in a calm, yet commanding tone. "Just let me explain," he said, fixing his only son with a pointed look. Lyall expected his son to interrupt him, to yell at him for keeping this part of how he had met his mother from him a secret all these years, to refuse to let him speak, but Remus did no such thing. Instead, he merely collapsed back against the pillow and gave Dora's hand a squeeze.

"Let your father tell the rest of the story, Rem. He's already gotten this far, I'd really like to hear the rest of it, wouldn't you? Your father's proven there are parts to how they met that even _you_ aren't aware of," Tonks whispered in a hushed voice that sounded slightly clipped, hardening her own voice in response to her husband's sudden aggression towards her father-in-law.

She looked towards Remus's father for a quick confirmation, who silently nodded his agreement and tried to silently thank Tonks with her eyes for attempting to diffuse and deescalate the situation at hand.

Lyall exhaled a slightly shaking breath through his nose and continued.

"Remus, all I ask is that you listen to me _carefully_. I know…"

He hesitated, twiddling with his thumbs as his hands rested in his lap in his rocking chair, and he stifled back a small smile as Teddy clambered onto his lap, sensing his grandfather wanted the comfort at the moment.

He let out a sigh and affectionately patted the boy's thick tuft of light brown hair, so like his father's and grandfather's. Ted carried more than his fair share of his and Remus's physical characteristics, and his mother's fierce kindness and unswerving loyalty.

Lyall swallowed hard and continued speaking, all the while his son and daughter-in-law were staring at him from their respective places on the sofa, waiting for him to continue.

" _Yes_ , I kept this part of how I met your mother a secret from you, son, but before you judge me for it, I need you to hear me out and listen to me…" Until his son's feeble, resigned nod of acceptance did Lyall continue. " _Yes_ , your mother and I had a run-in with Fenrir Greyback that night." He paused at his son's sudden crumple of his face at the mention of the older werewolf's name.

Remus stared across the room at him, his light brown eyes overcome with disbelief and mounting horror, causing his eyes to lose their normally quite kind, twinkling, playful sheen whenever he was around his loving wife and his five-year-old son, and Lyall saw this.

The simple fact remained that he could still shock his son into anger, but he had no choice, and he had to listen to his reasoning for why he'd kept this part of his and Hope's first meeting a secret for all these years. He inhaled.

But how he went about explaining it, he had to be careful. He did not want to risk further upsetting his son and his temper.

"I thought that if I told you the entire truth, it would only incite further panic in you," Lyall hastily explained, feeling Teddy start to squirm on his lap. His grandson was eager to hear the rest of his story of how he met his grandmother. He made an odd little strangled sound at the back of his throat, taking note of how his son had gone ever silent, seemingly struggling to speak, and he thought he swore he caught a glimpse of a sparkle of a lone tear slipping from his lid, down his chin, onto his shirt.

Lyall could tell as he silently assessed Remus's initial reaction to his claim, that he had been correct in that regard. Even now, years later, he did not seem to be taking the news well at all, judging by his current behavior. Lyall and Hope had always sought to protect their Remus from Greyback's wrath ever since he was bitten when he was only five years old.

And it was only now, as he sat in his rocking chair in front of the roaring fire in the fireplace, that he realized how that might have seemed to Remus, not telling him the truth that Hope and Lyall had encountered Greyback, the night Lyall had saved Hope Howell from her boggart in the woods.

The emotional torment of knowing how much he was hurting his son by keeping this information from him was far worse than anything he had recently endured, excluding losing his Hope to cancer a few years ago. He hated himself. He knew he'd been a blind and bloody fool to conceal the truth of what had happened all these years ago to his only son.

 _Hope would have wanted me to tell Remus the truth_ , he thought bitterly and was not given a chance to further elaborate as Nymphadora murmured under her breath she was going to head to the kitchen to prepare some tea for the adults and get a glass of milk for Teddy and a couple of cookies, having heard the loud, rumbling growl her son's stomach had just emitted. Chuckling to herself, Tonks rose from her perch on the sofa, giving her husband's shoulder an affectionate squeeze, heading towards the kitchen.

Lyall waited patiently to speak until his daughter-in-law returned, not having to wait long, less than five minutes, with steaming cups of hot herbal tea, a small plate of cookies, and Teddy's glass of milk.

As Remus took a moment to stir the teabags in his cup of tea, he glanced up towards his father and regarded Lyall with a cautious look.

"I don't understand why you kept it a secret from me, Dad, but I would like to _try_ ," Remus muttered in a low, calmer tone than before, when he'd finally managed to regain his voice, watching as Tonks gave their son his glass of milk and cookies, warning him not to spill any crumbs on Grandpa's nice hardwood floors, before settling back onto the sofa to sit next to him. "Why did you not tell me about this _before_ , Dad? Did something… _happen_ that night? Is _that_ why you've never said anything?"

Remus paused, so unsure of himself, not sure how to continue, and opted for silence as the only apt response, lifting his gaze and looking at his father with utmost worry and concern, because for once, Dad looked away from him. His father instead, settled his gaze on the roaring fire in the hearth, which was not exactly a good sign. This was not exactly a promising sign.

Lyall pondered his thoughts, wracking his brain for what to say. Unbeknownst to Remus, Lyall had been asking himself that exact same question for years. Yes, something _had_ happened. Something that, even to this day, terrified him to remember.

He grimaced as he looked into the roaring flames in the fire of the fireplace, flashes of that night in the cursed woods flitting through the forefront of his mind. Lyall froze, forcing himself to tear his mind away from the gruesome images of finding Hope Howell in Greyback's clutches, knowing he'd been almost a fraction of a second too late to save the young Muggle woman from Cardiff.

What had happened to her…he did not like to think of it, even right now. Or _almost_ happened, had it not been for his fellow Ministry of Magic colleague, Merlin bless that man, coming to Hope Howell's rescue when he had, then there was a very strong chance Greyback would have attacked and killed Hope.

The choice to keep this information from his son, even when Remus was old enough to understand and comprehend their reasonings why had seemed so obvious to Lyall at the time, that, he'd simply forced the unpleasant memory to the darkest recesses of his mind and had tried, truthfully, not to think about that part of that fateful night.

There had been such an urgency to it. But now, he wished with all his heart there would have been another way. 

He wished, more than anything, that his sweet Hope could be sitting beside his side, perhaps in a rocking chair in front of the fire of her own, interjecting with her own opinions of how her version of the tale of how they met went, from her perspective.

But of course, all he had of his Hope now were her memories. And Remus, whenever he looked into his son's eyes and saw his wife staring back at him. Their son had her eyes.

"Remus." Lyall studied his son with a pensive, thoughtful expression, furrowing his brows in a contemplative manner. "You are smart enough to understand why your mother and I did not tell you," he acknowledged. "We wanted to protect you, to try to shield you from the truth. The truth is…" He hesitated, unsure of how to continue, but sensing that Teddy was eager for his story to continue, forced himself to press onward. "That Greyback would have killed your mother and me, that night. The beast had been suspicious of me long before that night that he attacked you. I don't know why he followed me. To corner me to try to kill me that night, I suspect. He hadn't anticipated I'd be with your mother, which only made it more of a game to him."

He winced as he remembered how he'd watched Greyback interrogating Hope, and had been fearful of the wolf's reaction, even then. Perhaps that had been one of the main reasons why he had found himself attached to the young Muggle administrative assistant from Cardiff so quickly, overcome with a fierce determination to protect her.

When he'd realized he'd fallen in love with her all those years back, Lyall could not bear to think of what the accursed wretch who had bitten his five-year-old son would have done to Hope that first night in the woods, if Greyback had discovered he was beginning to harbor feelings for the young Muggle woman that he had accidentally stumbled across, then.

Tonks interjected, speaking for the first time since Lyall had launched into his story, her brows furrowed in puzzlement as she looked towards Remus's father.

"But why didn't you tell any of this to Remus when he was old enough?" she questioned, glancing sideways at her husband out of the corner of her eye and shooting Lyall's son an affectionate smile. "He's one of the strongest men I've ever known. He is more than capable of taking care of himself and handling his own, sir. Surely, he would have understood. He understands now, Lyall."

"I couldn't," Lyall murmured, a light pink blush of shame speckling along his cheeks, flushing them high with color. "I was too ashamed, dear."

Remus eyed his father in confusion, winding his hand around his mug of piping hot tea. "What _happened_ that night, Dad? What _aren't_ you saying? I can see it in your eyes. How even did Fenrir Greyback manage to get within fifty feet of Mum?"

His son was staring at him accusingly, and Lyall was quick to decide he did not like it. Lyall swallowed down hard past a growing lump in his throat, turning his head to the side and covering his mouth to cough, his face feeling like it was on fire.

"I ah…left her alone for five minutes in the woods to find her something to eat. Hope was hungry and cold, and I didn't want her to suffer. I—I was trying to help your mother that night, and I…made it _worse_. I should never have left her side," he growled, the note of bitterness and self-loathing in his voice seeping into his voice unbidden to the surface. Lyall made a show of turning his head away. He did not want to look into his son's eyes and see the immense look of shock and anger and disappointment he fully expected to see.

He cringed and fell silent, waiting for the familiar hot fire spark of anger to cause his son's temper, which Remus had sadly inherited from him, to implode in anger. He left his statement hanging in the air between the three adults and the one child in the room. His chest tightened and Lyall's throat hollowed.

The heavy, uncomfortable silence lingered, suffocating, until at last, Remus managed to find his voice again, and when he did speak to his father, his tone was trembling, shaking in anger.

" _What_? You left Mum _alone_ , Dad?! What were you _thinking_? You were lucky she wasn't _killed_!" Remus yelled, fighting back the urge to bolt from his spot on the sofa and restlessly pace the length of the floor. Lupin swallowed, well aware his voice had risen in volume. He glanced towards his son currently perched on his grandfather's lap, watching his father with wide, fearful eyes.

"I _know_ ," Lyall snapped, hardening his voice in response to his son's aggression. "You think I'm not _aware_ of that, son? There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about what happened that night, what could have happened if it weren't for Scamander."

This time, it was Tonks who broke the awkward silence in Lyall Lupin's living room upon the mention of famed, renowned Magizoologist Newt Scamander's name. 

Tonks, who had been about to take a sip of her hot Chamomile tea, coughing and choking on her tea that had apparently gone down the wrong windpipe. 

Remus had to thump Tonks on the back until her coughing fit subsided, leaving his poor wife gasping for air to return to her.

"You—you _know_ Newt Scamander?" Tonks breathed, the young woman's pale grey-blue orbs widening in shock and awe. 

The man was famous, not only for his work with fantastic beasts throughout their world but also for his role in defeating the Dark wizard, Grindelwald.

Lyall merely proceeded to look mildly surprised at his daughter-in-law's shocked reaction, raising his eyebrows at the woman by way of response, studying the witch over the rim of his teacup as he lifted the cup to his lips and heavily drank.

He waited to respond to the question she had just posed to him until he gingerly set his tea mug on its saucer on the small wooden table next to his wooden rocking chair.

"Of course, I know Newt, Nymphadora. He's quite a good friend of mine, dear. He worked alongside me for a time when I was still employed with the Ministry of Magic. It was Newt who saved my wife's life that day in the forest," Lyall quickly explained.

Remus opened his mouth to speak but was not given the chance to speak further, before Teddy began restlessly squirming, still resting in his grandfather's lap, shifting awkwardly at the waist to try to look his grandfather in the eyes.

"Will you tell the rest of the story now, Grandpa? Pretty please?" Teddy begged, biting down eagerly on his bottom lip as hope sparkled throughout his brown eyes that reminded Lyall so much of his Hope, that for a brief second, it almost physically ached just look at the boy's eyes.

Lyall chuckled, shifting Teddy to his other leg to ease the ache of his lumbago and arthritis in his right leg, wincing as the boy took it upon himself to settle down and plopped down onto the top of his kneecap with more force than was perhaps necessary.

He flinched but ignored the swell of pain that shot up his leg and traveled all the way up and down his spine. He glanced down at his grandson and shot the five-year-old a kindly smile.

"You'd asked if there were monsters in my tale, Teddy Bear. Well, there are. Let's see…where was I? Oh. Right. The woods. And the monster…"

Lyall let out a haggard sigh, squeezing his eyes shut as visions of Greyback's leering face the night he'd looked at Hope Howell with such hunger in his eyes, came to the forefront of his mind, once again haunting poor Lupin after years of working hard to repress this moment of how he had met Teddy's grandmother.

But he had promised to tell Teddy the whole story. The good parts _and_ the bad, and Lyall considered himself a man who kept his promises, especially to that of his one and only grandson.

Sanguinely opening his eyes, breathing slowly through his nose, Lyall glanced down his nose at his grandson and continued.

"If it weren't for my old friend, Newt, we wouldn't have made it out. I owe Scamander my very life. He saved her life…"

* * *

**I feel like Newt and Lyall would have been wonderful friends. Looking forward to developing their friendship more in the story. Coming up in Ch. 6, Hope has an unexpected and frightening encounter with none other than, you guessed it, Greyback.**


	6. Not Alone

**XXXX**

**CHAPTER SIX**

**XXXX**

**LYALL** had not held a crying female in years. Not since he was twenty, and his father died, and his mother could hardly handle her husband's death. His mother had not taken Dad's passing well.

Neither had he, for that matter. The loss was a crippling one, and his mother, Merlin bless her soul, had very nearly crippled under the sheer weight of grief and despair on her shoulders, being left alone with only her son for company.

It had taken Lyall all the strength and inherited stubbornness from his mother to pull both of them out of the black hole of grief that threatened to consume and swallow them whole.

Lyall had nearly lost her in the process. And so, it appeared to be the same with the lovely Miss Howell. She was a victim of circumstance.

A poor young Muggle lost in the woods, a creature of unfortunate circumstances who was both frightened and lonely.

Lyall knew he would be lying to himself if he said that such a comparison did not frighten him, for it did. Very much so, in fact.

This poor, beautiful, sobbing young Muggle only a few years younger than he was, reminded him strangely of his mother, a witch of great standing and utmost respect for those around her.

So far, Miss Howell had treated him kindly and with respect, did not appear to be afraid of him, despite not knowing that he was a half-blood wizard, or that the wizarding world existed in parallel and in tandem to her mundane life as a Muggle.

Such a thing he had not experienced since his mother's death all those years ago.

Though, to be fair, he had not anticipated upon stumbling across a lone Muggle woman, and a beautiful one at that, walking alone in a boggart-infested thick Welsh green forest.

Lyall felt a pang of worry worm its way into his heart and prick at his heartstrings.

He was not entirely sure how the young woman would react to the news that he was, after all, a wizard. Or that magic existed parallel to her own world.

He would not be able to conceal the truth from this young woman forever, especially in the event that something _else_ , something perhaps even worse than the boggart Miss Howell had encountered earlier, were to stumble across their path while he was attempting to escort her home to ensure her safety.

Lyall was not sure he could explain it to anyone, not even if a Dark wizard was holding his throat at wandpoint threatening to end his life if he didn't deliver an adequate enough explanation, but he knew he liked Hope. A lot.

She was the very same creature from his _dreams_. The fact that he had happened to stumble across her walking alone in the woods was surely a sign sent to him from Merlin Himself, was it not?

Forcing himself to shove all thoughts aside, Lyall did what he could to provide comfort to Hope Howell, his hand patting her shoulder as reassuringly as he could manage, hoping the gesture was well-received.

It was strange and not at all natural for the clever, shy, young Ministry employee, yet it was the best he could currently think of.

He would remain close by until she cried herself out, just as Lyall had done for his poor mother all those years ago.

He had promised himself he would escort the young Muggle woman home and see to it she arrived safely on her doorstep, though there was a surge in his temper that flared at the thought of never seeing the celestial-like creature from his dreams ever again.

Lyall's fingers wound their way through strands of the young Muggle woman's dark chocolate locks, curling in frustration and ire.

He wildly wracked his brain for something to say to Hope. His focus felt so scattered, so filled with a horrible nervous anticipation that he wasn't sure he could hold an entire conversation much less sit still.

Against his better judgement, he rose off from his perch where his back had rested against a particularly large boulder that Miss Howell was leaning against.

Lyall knew he had to get through the evening in one piece. Escort her home, see her safely to her doorstep, and that was that.

And yet, he could already picture escorting Miss Howell once she was comfortable enough to Hogsmeade.

She would, to the best of his knowledge, be one of the first Muggles ever see it with her own two eyes, alongside Mr. Scamander's friend, Jacob, and—

_Jacob_! Lyall's eyes flung wide open as a dawning realization hit him. Jacob Kowalski was like Miss Howell in that the man was a Muggle, and had married Mr. Scamander's wife's sister, Queenie.

In his mind, Lupin could picture it already.

Telling Hope the truth, perhaps over a cup of tea or coffee at a cafe, quaint little Muggle place he knew in downtown London, and, assuming she took the revelation that her would-be-savior in the woods was a wizard well enough, he would be more than happy, with Newt's permission, of course, to introduce Hope to Jacob, in time.

Lyall was certain the man would be more than happy to help Miss Howell come to terms with understanding that the magical world existed in parallel to that of her own world.

She would take it well, he hoped, and he could see the two of them holding hands, a tingling feeling spreading throughout his entire body. Lyall would take her for a walk through the park and count the ducks. It seemed the most natural thing in the world. And Hope Howell, his special girl.

He wanted to wrap this young woman in his arms and never let the creature from his dreams go, to promise to keep her safe.

But first things _first_ , Lyall had to ask her out on a date following escorting her safely home, and his nerves were so bad, he shook at just the thought, and the gesture didn't go unnoticed by Miss Howell, who pulled apart from the gentle embrace, much to Lupin's chagrin, and flicked away the last of her tears, her tears now spent, with a well-practiced flick of her delicate index finger.

He paused for a moment, unsure of his words, before asking Miss Howell timidly, "Miss Howell, do you…trust me?"

Hope blinked owlishly at the handsome man standing opposite her. His soft voice had a slight stutter to it, most likely from nervousness. But a small pang of hesitation rested within her heart as well.

Hope knew she did not want to frighten him or scare him away with her answer in any way, considering she had known Lyall Lupin now for all of thirty minutes at best, so she decided she would be cautious for now.

"Yes, Lyall," she answered slowly and carefully, taking a small step forward, her A-line pleated skirt swaying ever so slightly with her movements. "With my life, sir."

Oh, _no_! She hadn't meant to let that slip out the way it had. She _did_ trust Lupin, that much she could tell. After all, he had scared her would-be attacker away.

If Lyall hadn't shown up when he had, Hope didn't like to think what the man would have done.

However, revealing that she trusted him within not even the first full-hour of knowing the man who had saved her life tonight would be enough to scare the hell out of most sane people!

His hand had yet to relinquish itself from her shoulder, though Hope felt Lyall give a start upon hearing her words.

_Great_ , she thought bitterly, biting down on her bottom lip, and squeezing her eyes tightly shut. _Now Mr. Lupin will pull away—_

But before Hope could finish her thought, a strong, rough, if not slightly calloused hand, reached out and caught her around the shoulders, pulling Hope forwards and closing off the gap of space between the two of them.

She let out a muffled squeak of surprise and gasped as Hope felt herself start to lose her balance and fell into something hard and firm. Hope opened her eyes just in time to see Lupin fold his gentle arms around her shaking form.

It was then that the full realization dawned on her and sent a wave of warmth spiraling through her frozen system.

Lyall Lupin was…was _hugging_ her. A slight pink blush speckled its way along her pale cheeks as she gave her head a curt shake to clear her mind, trying to make sense of what in God's name had just happened.

Though it was proving to be much more difficult than she had expected.

However, before Hope could ponder it further, she heard his soft, tenor-like voice speaking to her, almost whispering it in the shell of her ear.

"It's all right, Hope," he murmured, his chest almost vibrating rhythmically as he spoke. "Let yourself feel it. Let it _go_. You don't have to hide it from me for my sake, Hope."

Hope swallowed down hard as the tears that she had been attempting to tamper down and prevent from escaping her lids finally released themselves from the corners of her eyes and a shuddering, wracking sob escaped her, causing her body to shake.

Hope did as Lyall suggested and allowed herself to feel it rather than try to repress the pent-up emotions from her horrifying encounter of her would-be-attacker earlier in the woods.

She let the stress and worry flow out of her and into her new acquaintance, as his ironclad grip tightened around her back.

Hope felt one of Lyall's calloused hands rub soothing, comforting circles into the small of her back and up and down her spine, and that made her tears come harder, even more intense than before.

That Mr. Lupin was not angry with her or mad in any way for having to save her life. It amazed Hope how much tolerance and patience the handsome man around her age seemed to possess.

After God only knew how many minutes of allowing herself to cry in an unrestrained fashion, Hope managed to collect herself and tampered down the last of her tears and swallowed down hard past the lump in her throat that had tightened by now.

She felt better, at the very least, which was an improvement. By now, Lyall was somewhat awkwardly stroking and patting her dark hair.

Realizing this, her blush reddened even further as she abruptly pulled away from Lupin and wiped a stray tear from her lids and sniffed once or twice until she was sure her tears were spent.

"I, ah," she began, an awkward little chuckle escaping her lips as she glanced down at her hands, which were shaking. "Sorry."

"I…um…that…that's all right, Hope," Lyall trailed off, a thoroughly embarrassed and nervous edge to his quiet voice now.

Hope nodded, embarrassed, as she painfully twisted her hands together and glanced down at her feet, realizing how terribly, horribly awkward this all was, and it was this fact that prompted Hope to change the subject before things got _too_ awkward and she was going to have to explain herself, just why Lyall had found her wandering in the woods at night by herself.

"I um, I'm sorry for all that," Hope whispered, tucking back a stray wisp of dark chocolate hair behind her ear, and letting out a soft, albeit nervous chuckle. "I—I didn't mean to…lose control..."

"Hope, it's all right," Lyall interjected immediately, holding up a hand to stop Hope before she could apologize any further.

Lyall Lupin just looked at Hope Howell, his kind dark brown eyes filled with understanding and something akin to pity.

"You needed it. You were alone in the woods and a man almost attacked you and would have done _worse_ if I hadn't come. You needed it," Lyall repeated, giving his head a curt little shake, as if to clear his mind.

Hope nodded, feeling the beginnings of a soft smile tug the corners of her lips upward, and Hope did not try to fight it back. She smiled at Lyall.

"I think we _both_ did, Mr. Lupin, sir." She watched, slightly amused, as his pale features flushed a light pink before he moved to stand away from her, turning his back.

Hope let out a tired sigh and stood up straighter, stretching her aching arms and legs, which honestly felt like they needed no stretching at all.

Her legs throbbed from overuse and she wanted nothing more than to sit down and rest for a moment, but she knew if she stayed seated on the boulder that Lyall Lupin insisted she rest against for a moment to get her bearings, then she might just fall asleep, and God only knew what sort of monsters and beasts lurked within these woods.

She still harbored a twinge of uneasiness in her chest that the man from earlier might come back.

The sound of a twig snapping underfoot very nearly made her shriek. Hope slid off the boulder she'd been resting against, a hand over her racing heart as she tried to control the incessant chattering of her teeth.

She let herself relax a little bit when her gaze landed on Mr. Lupin.

_Lyall, he told me to call him Lyall_ , Hope had to constantly remind herself, her conscience chastising her.

"Wha— _wait_! Where are you _going_ , Lupin? You—you can't just _leave_ me here!" she begged, feeling a sudden stab of fear prick at her heart.

Hope stuck out her bottom lip in a slight pout and bit down on it. She shot out one of her arms with the intent to latch onto his forearm, as though she thought that might prevent the man from leaving.

However, she missed the material of his sleeve by a fraction of an inch when the man stepped away from her.

"What if… _he_ comes back, sir? I—I mean…Lyall," she stammered, quickly correcting herself, thinking that the man had mentioned more than once to call him by his name. It was going to take time to get used to calling her savior by his first name, considering she'd known the man all of maybe thirty minutes, at best. " _Please_. Please don't leave me alone, Lupin," Hope managed to gasp out in a breathy little squeak, still struggling to control her racing heart. He shot her a kind smile. "What if he comes back and you aren't here?"

Lyall smiled sadly and offered the young Muggle what he hoped was a kind, reassuring smile.

"He _won't_ come back, Hope, I promise. And you asked where I'm going? To try to find you some food, Miss Howell, that's where. From the sounds of things, you haven't eaten in quite a while," he added, almost at the exact moment he heard Hope's stomach give out another painful growl, as it had done for the last five minutes, painfully reminding the young woman she'd not eaten a bite of food, much less had a drink of water since lunch.

That had been at noon today, and it had to be now going on at least seven at night, if later than that. Lyall let out a bemused chuckle and shook his head.

"But first…" His smile faltered a little bit as Lupin took a moment to shrug out of his slightly tattered brown jacket and draped it over her shoulders in a chivalrous gesture upon seeing Hope wrap her arms around her middle, clutching herself as night had fully fallen by this point in time, and along with it, the steadily dropping temperatures.

But the moment Hope opened her mouth to protest, Lyall took a step forward, leaving the young woman nowhere to look but straight at the very man who had saved her life tonight.

To do anything else surely would have made her look foolish. There was no avoiding looking at Lupin's face, Hope thought wildly, as she sucked in air.

That was the most jarring element of her savior tonight. His jaw, which no doubt could cut like a butterknife, and the man's high, good cheekbones, were all that were needed to give the man a somewhat imposing appearance as Lyall stared down at her, his arms folded neatly across his chest, a rather admonishing expression on his face, as though silently daring her to give it back.

He let out a bemused chuckle as he noticed Hope staring at him in an unorthodox, shocked manner.

"You seem to have lost the power of speech, Miss Howell," said Lyall Lupin after a moment of silence, before shooting the young woman a pointed look and turning on his heels to leave. "No matter. I'm sure you'll regain it soon enough," the man teased.

The moment Lupin spoke the words, it felt as though Hope were awoken from some sort of trance, as if by wizard's curse.

There was warmth to the man's voice, the likes of which she had not heard from a man before. Hope opened her mouth to speak, but felt the words die upon her tongue as it refused her words' release, as she continued to stare at the man in front of her.

Shaking her head, she stepped away from the overly large boulder she had been using as a back brace to support her posture.

"You'll be back soon?" Hope asked, the question tumbling unchecked from her lips before she could think about stopping it.

Hope gave Lyall a hesitant glance as the man rolled up the sleeves of his sweater vest and white-collared shirt underneath it.

She let out what could only be described as a sigh of relief as he walked towards the edge of the woods.

"Less than five minutes, Miss Howell," he said to her, turning at the waist to better look her in the eyes, seeming to sense her hesitation. "I can give you my word. I won't be going far," Lupin promised her. "Just over there, beyond those trees," he added, pointing straight ahead of him with his index finger of his right hand. He shot her a quizzical, sideways glance out of the corner of his eye and smirked. "As the optimistic young woman that you seemed to have proven yourself to be in a relatively short period of time, I'm sure you can't help my concern for my well-being, but I assure you, you have nothing to worry about," he said, causing Hope's jaw to drop open in shock.

She swore she felt her cheeks start to burn maddeningly.

Lupin sounded like he was almost smiling towards the end, but when Hope slowly lifted her gaze to meet his, her hazel eyes met his backside, leaving her alone to stare after his retreating figure in shock.

The young brunette huffed in minor annoyance and folded her arms across her chest as she watched him disappear into the thick mist, secretly hoping that his thoughts about her thus far in their short-lived company were good, despite his sometimes off-color comments that she supposed came from his shy demeanor.

Lupin certainly made for easy company. He seemed to care about her. Or at the _very_ least, ensuring she reached home safely.

Hope began to grow nervous while she waited with gritted teeth for Lyall to return. She glanced this way and that, as far into the distance as the thick trees and dense fog in front of her allowed.

She listened intently for Lupin's footfalls or his occasional grumbling. She was met with nothing but the deafening sound of silence.

For a moment, Hope remained still and silent as her eyes scanned the trees around her.

Everything in these woods seemed to be frozen in time. She could hear no wind rustling or insects chirping, no groaning tree limbs creaking and swaying in the breeze.

She could not hear Mr. Lupin's voice at all, calling to her. Nothing at all. _Silence_.

It was almost as though she were looking at a painting of the woods that lay in front of her, rather than experiencing it for herself in her strange new reality of being lost.

"Well, maybe Lyall Lupin can help me get _un_ -lost," she whispered to herself, shivering, waiting with gritted teeth for Lyall to come back, in what Hope well, _hoped_ was a reassuring tone.

Hope couldn't help but wonder if the silence was enough for her to be worried.

Did the fact that it seemed to the young woman as though all other life in the forest had, save for her, and Lyall, wherever the man had disappeared to, vacated the forest, mean that something bad nearby?

Hope furrowed her brows in a frown as she looked around again, clutching herself as it was fairly cold.

She hated this. She couldn't quite shake the feeling again that someone or something was watching her from behind the trees.

_What if that man came back again_? Hope thought wildly, feeling her dark brown eyes widen and go round in shock and awe.

Hope squinted into the darkness, doing her best to keep an eye out for anything strange or unusual.

The moon still shone deeply into the sky, waning, so she could see, at least to an extent. She peeked out further into the woods. There didn't seem to be anything watching her, but she narrowed her eyes the moment she thought she saw movement lurking in the shadows.

Hope blinked her lids a few times and continued to stare at it. She didn't see anything now. She probably never had to begin with! It was just her imagination and fear manifesting from her unexpected encounter earlier with that stranger trying to further convince Hope that now someone else was out here in the forest.

Though in the other direction, towards her left, Hope swore she saw a shadowy, hulking, towering figure, even taller than the man from earlier.

For a moment, Hope felt… well, _hopeful_. Was it Lyall?

She squinted, straining her eyes trying to make out what she could, hoping to make out his brown tattered coat in this damn fog.

No, this fellow was much broader in the shadows than Mr. Lupin.

Hope winced, her fingers curling into a tight fist over the leather strap of her small black leather faux crocodile skin purse, fully prepared to pelt whoever stepped from the shadows with her little shoulder bag if they made advances towards her and attempted to try anything.

She swallowed a growing lump in her throat as Hope realized the figure was somehow coming closer towards her, though the man, whoever he was, did not appear to be moving.

The shadow the man's broad, tall figure was emitting was just as close as she was to the boulder she had been resting near and looked to have longer legs than Hope did and was quite quick.

Did he see her? Probably, considering she wasn't exactly hard to miss, even with all this thick mist that shrouded the forest.

Carefully and as stealthily as Hope could possibly manage, she backed away, looking to the left and right for a sign of Lyall.

She had to find Lyall and _fast_.

Unfortunately, the shadowy figure she saw in the distance wasn't so distant right now, as it happened, which spelled incredibly bad news for poor Hope.

Whoever the man was, he definitely saw her, because the shadow was almost _gliding_ towards her, it was as if he wasn't even walking, and whatever he was doing to reach her at such an impressive speed, he was coming right towards Hope now, and alarmingly fast. It scared Hope so badly her mind felt like it was utterly fried.

She could barely think. What should she do in this situation? Scream for Lyall and pray he arrived in time again? Run?

He was moving so _quickly_! He definitely saw her now and was coming towards Hope. He would certainly reach her before she could have a prayer's chance of stumbling across Lyall a second time. Wherever Lyall had disappeared to, it wasn't near enough.

Hope winced and took a step backward, her grip tightening over the strap of her purse, slowly sliding her small shoulder bag off her arm and squeezing it tightly with her hand.

There was no way she was going to make it back to wherever Lupin had disappeared to before being caught by this new stranger in the woods, and more to the point, besides, going in the direction Lyall had walked would only lead this bloke to him.

She couldn't do that to Lyall. Not after he had saved her life once tonight. So instead of turning in the direction Lupin had walked towards, she ducked behind and into the trees, keeping close to the edge of the woods to be sure the stranger followed her.

Hope wasn't sure if she should feel relieved or not when she noticed the man's shadow looming in front of her as he gave chase, as she noticed the stranger in the woods following her deeper into these accursed woods and hopefully away from Lyall in the process.

She groaned as she ran deeper into the forest. She was starting to feel a little bit light-headed as her lungs burned for air.

Hope wanted nothing more than to scream in a panic as she heard and even felt the pounding of the stranger's heavy footfalls behind her, and it sounded like he was gaining on her.

She wanted nothing more than to scream at the top of her lungs for Lyall to come to her aid yet again, but it could easily lead to him being killed as well in the process. She couldn't drag the man into this, not after all he had done to save her life tonight.

It was _her_ turn to return the favor, no matter how dangerous this decision of hers might be, even if she was terrified.

There was no use in getting Lupin killed tonight, as well. It was this thought that propelled Hope Howell forward and deeper into the woods, wishing she weren't so exhausted and at her wit's end, as it seemed the stranger following close behind her was gaining on her and escape and the hope of running into Lyall again was looking less and less likely to happen as the seconds passed.

Hope strained her ears, listening for more sounds, praying that Lupin would turn up again to drive this second attacker off.

She could hear twigs snapping underfoot as he closed in on her. As the young brunette administrative assistant ducked underneath gnarled, low-hanging branches, the man followed behind, copying her movements, crushing his huge body against the thin tree limbs, and snapping them off easily, like the branches were nothing more to the man than breaking a simple toothpick.

Hope barely repressed her urge to scream when the catcalls began, coming from almost directly behind her now as she ran.

"No use running from _me_ , darling," the man mocked in a gravely sounding voice that sounded to Hope like a wooden crate being scraped against a cobblestoned street. "Why don't you turn around and come on back here, pretty little dove? I got somethin' to show you," he laughed, his laugh a harsh, almost grating bark.

The young woman ignored the taunting remarks as best as she could, considering whoever this man was and what he wanted of her was gaining on her and his loud baritone voice rang out from beyond her line of sight, and Hope was feeling rather disoriented.

Now, she could no longer see him when she looked behind. It was almost as if he had disappeared, almost by… _magic_.

The man's baritone, listless sounding voice rang out from beyond her line of sight, now sounding much further away than he had a split second ago. Hope bit down on her inner cheek as she looked wildly to the left and right for any sign of the tall stranger.

None that she could see. _Damn_ , she thought, biting down on her bottom lip, and swallowing past the lump in her throat, all the while blinking back a fresh onset of tears.

She was so tired and even more frightened. She should not have allowed Lupin to leave.

Her lungs burned with each frantic breath as Hope forced her legs to run faster than she even knew she was capable of doing.

She felt suddenly sick, like she was going to throw up, and her entire body ached as though she had been hit by a truck, but she knew she had to keep running, even as her body protested. If she stopped, this man behind her might very well just kill her here.

Hope wasn't a daft bimbo like Kelly back at the insurance office was. She wasn't _stupid_.

She knew if she allowed this stranger to catch her, she would be doomed, but it did not seem like outrunning this man, whoever he was, was going to become a very real possibility.

Nevertheless, Hope forced herself to continue following the woodland path at her feet, hoping it would lead her to safety, to Lyall again, only stopping when somehow, the man seemed to materialize out of thin air, stopping directly in front of Hope, effectively blocking the young woman's current only escape path.

Hope wildly glanced down at the ground at her feet, spotting a rather large, oversized broken off tree branch, more of a stick, really, but it was better than nothing.

Bending to pick it up, she dropped her purse to the ground and let her bag fall by the front of her feet, holding the stick out in front of her, both hands wrapped tightly around it, brandishing it in front of her like she would hold a sword or even a baseball bat.

She gasped in between painful breaths of frigid cold air and held onto the stick tightly with shaking fingers as she looked round. She was more or less trapped and still, no sign of Lyall.

Maybe she should have screamed for help earlier when she still had the chance and had been thinking about it. But then, if this man didn't know Lupin was also in the woods with her, then maybe the man who had saved her life wouldn't be in any danger.

"What you doin' out in the forest all _alone_ , little mouse?" the man questioned Hope with a sickeningly disgusting grin on his face as he took a small, somewhat cautious step towards Hope.

Hope hesitated. She didn't know what to do at this point. She felt so horribly, utterly scared, and not to mention, quite sick.

How was she supposed to find it within herself to be able to convince this man to just let her go and not harm her?

He didn't seem like the sort who was used to being reasoned with, let alone with a woman, and she wasn't a fighter. She figured her best bet, no matter what, was to stand her ground and continue to keep still.

"Lay down the stick, sweetheart, and I won't hurt you," the man promised with an evil grin spreading across his rather hairy face. "I just want to have a harmless little _chat_ with you, poppet."

That definitely did _not_ sound like a promise Hope could trust.

"W—we can talk. I—I won't use my—my _stick_ , if _you_ won't use _yours_ ," she offered, her gaze drifting towards the man's hand, where she noticed he too had procured a strange-looking wooden stick in his hand.

At first, she thought it to be a knife, but considering it was too dark to make out any details, and her attention was more fixated on staying glued to the man's face, she shoved aside thoughts of the stranger's weapon in his hand for now.

Hope kept a tight grip on the stick in her hands, ready to use it to defend herself if she had to, and it was looking like that was going to have to be the case, as this man did not seem to be the sort of man who would just walk away from the opportunity to hurt or kill a young woman who was seemingly alone in the forest.

The man merely laughed, his harsh, grating voice sending a chill of fear down Hope's spine and a cold sweat started to form along her temples as the stranger took a terrifyingly large step forward.

"S—stay _back_ , I—I'm _warning_ you!" Hope warned as she maneuvered the stick in her hand, so the sharpest end was pointed towards the man's burly, broad, and rather hairy chest.

She tried to keep her voice steady and strong and her hands from shaking violently, but that was much easier said than done in the moment.

"You're playing a dangerous game with me, little dove," the man growled in a low, threatening voice. "A _very dangerous_ game, sweetheart. You know you can't fight me off, but if you wish to _try_ , then I'll be more than delighted to play along, pretty little thing."

Hope shook her head vehemently as she took a few steps back, unable to stop her cry of pain from escaping her lips as she faltered, fumbling and almost lost her balance over a twisted tree root that had been hidden underneath a pile of fallen, dead leaves.

Hope gasped as the man's left arm shot out in front of her and grasped onto her forearm, preventing her from falling, though the gesture did not stop him from clamping a large, dirty hand over her mouth.

Hope drew back her arm towards her aggressor, trying to jab at the man's stomach with her elbow, anywhere she could manage to reach if she could, but the stranger quickly latched onto her flailing arm with his other hand before Hope could fight back.

"What to _do_ with you, little dove?" the rough-handed stranger in the woods wondered out loud with a cruel laugh as the young woman whimpered under the man's hard, unforgiving hairy hand that looked more like an animal's claw than any human male's hand that Hope had ever seen.

He was very nearly suffocating her, as she struggled to plead with her assailant to please let her go. Hope could only manage a pitiful mewl of fear in response to the man's question.

The man very clearly expected Hope to answer. She would have cried out audibly if it were possible to make such a noise, but instead, her pained gasp exited her lips as a mere hushed whisper thanks to the man's hand over her mouth.

"I'm sure you aren't out here alone, sweetheart," the stranger continued in his rough, grating voice that sounded coarse. "How could you have survived on your own and for so long? You don't look like a Ministry employee, dove," he growled, scrutinizing Hope's office attire with a piercing blue eye that made her shiver. "So, if you aren't with the Ministry, then who are you in here with?" He paused, glancing to the left, and right, as though half expecting her company to materialize yet again out of thin air. "Tell me what I want to know, darling, and perhaps I won't cut off your pretty little fingers, one by one, though, they _do_ look _delish_."

Hope froze, almost bursting into hysterical sobs upon hearing the man's words, feeling her eyes growing impossibly wide.

Would this man _really_ cut off her fingers if she didn't talk to him?

But she _couldn't_ tell this stranger about Lyall. Telling him the truth would surely result in Mr. Lupin's death as well as her own.

At least if she stayed silent, there was a _chance_ —a small chance—that she could save Lyall's life, even if she suffered for it.

It wasn't very likely this man would show her any mercy, even if Hope did crack and succumb under pressure and talk.

Her options were to remain silent and be hurt, possibly even killed, or talk, and be hurt or killed as well and cause Lyall to suffer a similar fate.

The answer, at least in Hope's mind, was quite obvious to her. She'd keep the details of her walk in the woods to herself.

"N—no one," she lied in a trembling voice at the same time as she attempted to catch her breath. "I—I'm out here by myself."

Hope cried out in pain when the man shoved her particularly roughly forward, sending her sprawling onto the hard earthen forest floor.

Without even having any time to react at all, she caught herself with both hands, which sent a sharp jolt of white-hot, flaring pain up her arm as she collapsed to the ground.

When the man made no motion to pick her back up after a moment or two of simply observing her behavior in a heavy silence, the young brunette opted to pick herself up off the ground with her left hand, which now, thanks to his harsh shove and her having to catch her fall, now felt like it was bruised, and quite possibly sprained, maybe even broken.

"You wouldn't have survived this long in a boggart-infested forest on your own, sweetheart," the man spoke up in his rough voice, ignoring Hope's confused look at the mention of a boggart.

_That's the second time that word has been said to me tonight_ , Hope thought, feeling her brows come together in a frown. _Lyall said the same thing earlier but…what's a boggart_?

Unfortunately, Hope was given no time at all to ponder the use of the strange, unfamiliar word further in her mind as the man knelt into a crouch and dragged Hope up off the ground by her arm and continued speaking to her in such a low tone that Hope could only describe it as almost a low, animalistic, wolfish snarl.

"Someone, another Ministry employee, I suspect, has been keeping you from getting yourself killed, sweetheart. Unfortunately for _you_ , little dove, whichever wizard, or witch you were traversing these woods with, seems to have left you behind."

_Witch? Wizard?! Boggarts_? This man was using words that were making no sense all to Hope, and she could tell by the gleaming sheen of unshed moisture in the man's crystalline blue eyes that he wasn't exactly sane. He looked quite livid and rather deranged.

What was she dealing with here, exactly? Mental ineptitude for social graces? A mild to severe case of insanity?

Hope didn't know, but what she _did_ know, was that she was in grave danger.

Hope swallowed down hard as she felt the stranger's large hand completely circle her upper arm as Hope could feel herself beginning to be shoved towards the front, so that the man was now standing directly behind her, forcing Hope to shuffle along and follow his lead.

She shivered as she felt the tip of something sharp and wooden press squarely into the small of her back, just near her spine.

With that, the stranger began leading Hope Howell deeper and further into the woods.

As panicked as Hope found herself, she was too scared and entirely too exhausted at this point to even struggle or consider trying to escape and make a break for it.

"You just wait and see what I'll do to you," the man threatened as he continued to prod Hope in the back with the tip of his strange wooden knife, forcing Hope to drag her feet forward. "You're quiet _now_ , sweetheart, but that isn't going to last long when your fragile little bones snap in between my _teeth_ , witch. I'll break your tiny body in more ways than you can imagine. Oh, don't you worry, none, I'll get you to tell me who you're with. I'll get you to talk, but it's up to you how much you want to _suffer_ for it, first…"

* * *

**Things are** **definitely** **not looking good! Poor Hope! Coming up in Ch. 7, Hope attempts to stall Greyback for time, and an unlikely ally stumbles across Lyall, but will they arrive in time to save Hope? Stay tuned for more!**


	7. Her Unlikely Helper

**XXXX**

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

**XXXX**

**HOPE** fought the urge to cower away from the huge, new, hulking stranger that looked more beast to her than the man who now stood before her, watching her with listless, narrowed piercing eyes of blue that the young brunette was not at all sure what to make of.

She wished she were brave and stoic like Lyall had quickly proven himself to be, and Hope had known the handsome man all but fifteen minutes at best, maybe a half-hour, it was hard for her to say just how long it was.

The young brunette administrative assistant swallowed down hard past the growing lump in her throat as it hollowed and constricted, cutting off sweet, precious oxygen to her lungs, squeezing her eyes shut as the towering man before Hope slowly advanced, looking at her much like a wild panther would stalk its prey, his eyes narrowing until they resembled that of mere slits, like a pit viper's slit-like pupils.

A wave of cold fear and dread washed over Hope Howell, pricking at her heartstrings, causing bile to rise in her throat. Hope had no idea if this man was with the other one that had approached her earlier before Lyall Lupin had come to her rescue or not. She couldn't say.

There was nothing to stop this new man from killing her, hurting her, doing whatever it was that he wanted of her. Hope was all but powerless, unarmed, outmatched, and entirely alone with no signs of Lyall Lupin returning to her soon.

_Lyall probably doesn't even know that I'm missing_ , she thought, repressing a moan as her throat continued to hollow and constrict until she thought she might faint, as it felt like no air was coming to her passageways.

She couldn't even breathe. Lupin was not going to come to her aid if the man couldn't even find her or didn't even know how to begin searching for her, wherever this man had brought her.

Hope bit the wall of her cheek, fighting desperately to tamper down the fresh onset of salty, briny liquid that threatened to escape her lids as the man stood in front of the young brunette, towering over her, and staring down at Hope with a cruel smirk, the edges of his lips curling upwards into a twisted, truly vile sneer.

The young woman drew in a sharp breath that pained her lungs as this new stranger squatted down so he was higher than eye-level than Hope, who continued holding her breath and shrinking down against the strange cave that this man had brought her to for purposes unknown, things she did not even want to think about if she could help it.

The stranger continued smiling at her in a way that sent a wave of fear down her spine, as her gaze was drawn to the man's impossibly sharp teeth. No, no, that was not quite the right word for this stranger's teeth. They looked like… _fangs_.

Hope shivered, but before she could ponder this revelation further, the stranger spoke to her in his dry, listless baritone, shattering her thoughts.

"Tell me, little dove, and please…be _honest_. Don't even think of lying to me, darling, just don't," the man crooned, his baritone a smooth, languid tone, which at first surprised Hope, considering how rough around the edges he looked. "Are you a friend of someone that works at the Ministry? A friend of Dumbledore's, perhaps, sweetheart? Traveling with others? Perhaps there is an entire group of you lot traveling in the forest? Wouldn't that just be something else, huh, darlin'? Who are you here with?"

Hope swallowed down hard, shaking her head no, not wanting to answer his questions, but at the same time, wanting desperately more than anything to get the stranger to stop what he was doing.

The material of her black silk blouse and her skirt protected her from the man's claws scratching the surface of her skin, but the young brunette still didn't like the fact that this wicked brute was standing so dangerously close, nor did she particularly like either how he _touched_ her.

She almost would have preferred being shoved over this confusing, almost intimate gesture. Hope tried to shrink down into herself as much as possible, not enough to look scared, but enough to distance herself from her kidnapper's awful claws.

Hope offered up no reply to his comments, but instead, allowed her thoughts to drift to Lyall.

Oh, he had to be absolutely beyond worried for her right now, assuming the man had discovered she was missing and was now hopefully looking for her. It filled Hope with a horrible dread and guilt to realize the unnecessary strife and guilt she was causing her savior, but what other choice did she have? She couldn't let Lyall get himself killed, too.

Hope mutely shook her head, silently indicating she was unwilling to answer the stranger's questions, but in her chest, she felt her pounding heart threatening to break free against its cage of bone and cartilage, pounding harder with each passing second as the seconds turned to minutes.

Hope was stupid. She knew the longer she resisted, the more annoyed the man was getting. And even closer to lashing out, and the nearest thing he would be able to strike at was _her_.

She swallowed down hard and tried to put on as brave a face as she could muster, but it wasn't enough.

The man must have gotten the idea somewhere that treating his new fragile captive with pseudo-kindness was apt to get Hope Howell to talk, but Hope was not about to fall for such a trick, and her captor was rapidly losing his patience, _fast_.

The young woman let out a gasp of surprise and fear as the man's hairy hand shot out towards her, wrapping his thick, long fingers around the pale column of her throat, and pulling her close to him.

Hope shivered, from a mixture of cold and fear. She honestly felt dangerously close to passing out, and that her immense wave of fear washing over her body in this given moment was the only thing keeping her from allowing herself to relax just enough to faint in the man's ironclad, tight grip.

"Don't you realize, _witch_ , what I'll do to you if you refuse to tell me the information I want, dear?" The man narrowed his piercing blue eyes.

"Not…a—a witch," Hope managed to gasp out, turning her head to the side to cough as her lungs screamed for biting air thrashing in and out of her lungs at a speed she simply couldn't keep up with.

"So, you're a _Muggle_ then," the man breathed, his blue eyes widening in shock and awe. "Well, well, this _does_ make much more sense then," he whisper hissed through gritted teeth, leaning in so that Hope could feel his hot breath on her cheeks.

Hope was horribly, utterly confused as she squeezed her eyes shut, shrinking away from him. Oh, but God, what she wouldn't give to possess just one ounce of magic like she read in her books!

For a wizard like Gandalf in one of her favorite books of all time, _The Hobbit_ , to appear, and turn this man to stone, just as Gandalf did to the trolls who were threatening to torment and cook Bilbo.

Or better _yet_ , if she herself were to be possessed with the gift of magic, that would surely be the first thing she would do.

Turn this beast, this _monster_ , into a statue! Then he couldn't hurt her, or anyone else again. Hope stifled a pained gasp as she felt one of the man's claw-like fingernails stroke the skin of her throat. She did not care for this false gentleness.

Hope was not this man's little _pet_ to do with as he liked. Not a helpless young woman who would give up the name of the man who'd saved her life tonight from that other frightening stranger in the woods due to a gentle hand on her face, much less a gentle hand that was at the same time, calloused, rough, and entirely threatening, yes.

A hand that Hope didn't want anywhere near her. Not if she could help it in any way at all. But before poor Hope could even think about raising a hand against the man's chest and shoving him back in an effort to get this strange brute off of her, he pulled her closer again, grabbing her chin, forcing Hope to meet his gaze.

"You're _lost_ , little girl. Do you even _know_ where the wizard who saved you _is_?" he growled. "A boggart lurks in these woods. It's no place for a Muggle like you. There's no possible way you're out here all alone. Tell me where the wizard is that saved your life, little dove, and I might just let you live longer."

Hope stared with widened eyes as her throat hollowed and constricted. There was that word again. A Muggle. Whatever it was, she was one.

She was sure of it. And then there was the mention of the word 'boggart,' Lyall had said it to her earlier, but she, like this word Muggle that kept getting thrown into the conversation, had no idea what it meant at all. Hope felt her bottom lip quiver as she glanced around the forest out of the corner of her eye, not sure how to get out of this.

Hope quickly realized she probably wasn't going to, at least not without betraying Lyall and offering up his name in the hopes this man would let her go when she did, of which she doubted it.

"You _are lost_ , aren't you, sweetheart?" the man crooned in a sickeningly false sympathetic voice. "You're a sweet little Muggle far from home and completely lost," the man smirked, revealing sharp, pointed canines that looked like fangs. "Well. You're lucky I stumbled across you then, so you'll have someone to look after you, little pet. Don't you know there are…scoundrels that hide in the shadows, sweetheart?" he asked Hope, his bitter voice utterly dripping with sarcasm, and Hope could faintly smell some kind of alcohol, a whisky of sorts, on the man's hot, searing breath.

She crinkled her nose in disgust, not wanting to have any of this. She had a mission, a goal, to save Lyall's life if she could help it, and she was not about to let this hulking, towering man have him.

Lyall had saved her life. It was only fair that Hope at least _try_ to return the favor, she thought, and if that meant keeping silent about Lyall's whereabouts, then so be it. Though even if she wanted to spill her guts to this man, she couldn't.

She herself had no idea where Lyall disappeared to. Hope's temper boiled over the surface and the words were out of her mouth before she could stop herself.

" _Scoundrels_? Like _you_ , sir?" she asked, her tone sounding piercing and rather practical, feeling grateful that it masked how afraid she was.

Hope tilted her chin upward in a stubborn gesture and made a futile attempt to shove past him. Hope, feeling a newfound surge of adrenaline vent through her veins, bolted forward, jostling the stranger's broad, burly shoulder in the process, though she yelped as she felt herself being pulled roughly backward and thrown roughly onto the forest floor.

Pain shot through her limbs from the impact of the fall and she felt the warmth of something wet, sticky, and crimson pouring down her wrist. She swallowed hard, glancing upward as her fear was so powerful that Hope could not even summon the strength within herself to scream for help.

She felt entirely too drained, too weak to move at this point, but was able to loll her head to the side and peer towards the forest's clearing in the hopes that Lyall would return before this man could finish what he had started.

However, due to black spots creeping in at the edges of her vision, she could not make out anything clearly, as her head swam and was clouded by the onset of Hope's own tears.

The towering, burly, hairy man that Hope's overactive imagination that currently felt like it was reeling in her delirium, swore that it looked more like fur than hair, looming over her did not seem to be able to pay attention to anything else.

His gaze remained fixated solely on Hope's groveling form on the forest floor.

"Whoever you're out here with, girl, they've done you a terrible disservice, little dove," the stranger who had not identified himself sneered, kneeling into a crouch, only to latch his blackened fingernails that were more like claws around her forearm and wrench the young woman aggressively to her feet once again. "Wandering off by themselves, leaving a poor, defenseless Muggle girl, and a pretty little thing at that, all alone in these big, scary woods with no one to back you up," he taunted in a mocking tone that carried a slight lilt to it, either ignoring or relishing the look of utter bewilderment and confusion on Hope's face. "They just up and left you, love…"

_What's a Muggle_? Hope thought wildly. Whatever it was, judging by the condescending nature of the stranger's voice, Hope knew that no matter what, it was not meant as a compliment and was very much an insult in this man's eyes.

The man was _insane_ , and all hope of reasoning with him was lost. She could see that now, yes. Hope parted her cracked and bleeding lips open to speak, her brown eyes glistening with tears as she tried one last time to reason with the man.

Hope very nearly screamed when she felt the stranger gripping onto her wrist hard enough that she swore she sprained it as she felt a muscle pull. She let out a pained whimper as she felt the man's strong, hairy hand that was more of a claw encircle her small wrist in a crushing, tight grip.

Before the young brunette administrative assistant even realized she was doing so, she found herself kicking out at the man's kneecaps, swinging her free arm at the man's bicep in a futile attempt to get this stranger to releasing her.

" _Let me g_ o!" she screamed, biting back a sob at the sharp pain in her arm. It was surely broken. "Don't. _Please_!" she gasped, staggering backward the moment she felt the stranger's ironclad loosen slightly, though her moment of freedom didn't last long.

It didn't take the stranger long at all to recover and he rushed towards her, lunging with outstretched arms. Hope felt herself again being seized, only this time, the man's grip was harder, and she tried her hardest to keep from letting out a pained cry of help, but her scream escaped unchecked from her lips before she could stop it.

Her retaliation angered the brute, for Hope felt a harsh blow dealt with the back of her skull, causing the poor young woman to lose all of her balance, and toppled to the forest floor, landing painfully on her ankle, and she swore she felt it twist, maybe even break. She couldn't stop the gasp of pain that escaped her lips as her ankle twisted.

She could taste blood in her mouth and she quickly felt the bile rise up from her stomach.

Hope's face turned an interesting shade of green. She tried to focus on her assailant, but due to the harsh blow she had just been dealt to the head, it was hard for the young brunette to zero in on anything, as her vision was blurred at the edge.

She wanted nothing more than to sob, to scream and cry at the pain of her twisted ankle, and God only knew how many other bruises and injuries she had sustained in this man's company, but she was too tired and beaten down, and scared. Even when she felt too broken to cry out for help, Hope swore she heard a man's faint yell.

Hope blearily opened her eyes and struggled to focus her hazy vision behind the man now looming in front of her, looking down his nose at her, staring behind his thigh from her perch on the ground, practically groveling at the man's feet.

Hope felt too weak to move at this point, given the nature of her ankle, she doubted she could even crawl fifty feet away before he'd catch her, but she was able to loll her head to the side as she collapsed onto the forest floor, and peer behind the man, the tails of his black leather trench coat flapping in the breeze, the only audible noise other than the rustling of leaves and the crunching of what sounded like twigs underfoot.

_Lyall_? Hope thought, her ears perking up at the noise, if only her vision would clear better, she could see who was hopefully coming to her aid.

Though she wasn't given a chance as the stranger towering over her spoke up, shattering her attention and forcing her gaze to look at him.

"Perhaps I'll let you live, for _now_ , sweetheart, if only to see you _suffer_ more later before you turn. I quite enjoy your tears, little bird, and look forward to seeing more of them on that pretty little face of yours, poppet," the hulking stranger that looked like some horrific, hairy creature off a movie set than someone Hope had the misfortunate of encountering in real life, taunted.

Hope merely managed a small, pitiful mewl of fear and slid back as far as she could on her injured ankle, her back pressing against the trunk of a weathered old pinewood tree for support.

Hope let out a tiny groan and curled in on herself when she felt a sharp kick at her left side from the edge of the man's black leather boot.

"Don't! _Please_!" she gaped weakly through her tears, as she clutched weakly at the man's foot, which was currently threatening to crush her ribs if she tried to fight him in any way.

The man merely threw back his head and laughed, his sharp canines glinting in the faint waning moonlight streaming through the trees' canopy. He snorted as he simply put a bit more pressure on his foot, taunting poor Hope with a threat that Hope could only pray was not delivered upon.

This hulking stranger, whoever he was, could have broken every bone in her body in one quick motion if he wanted to, he was that enormous. There was something savage about him, something animalistic, almost… _wolfish_.

Hope couldn't place the feeling. This man was utterly out of his mind, certifiably nuts.

He had mentioned something about her turning _. Turn_? Turn where? Hope didn't want to 'turn' anywhere or 'turn' into anything unless it was to 'turn' right around and go home.

But as Hope dared to look into the stranger's piercing blue eyes with what little vision she still possessed as black spots crept their way into the edges of her vision, threatening to blind her, she could tell this bloke had no intention of allowing it to happen. It would have been the easiest thing for a huge, hulking man at least five times the size of Lyall Lupin to do to a defenseless young woman lying almost completely still and helpless on the ground.

Hope felt tears start to spill silently from her lids as she gingerly, weakly, pushed against the man's foot with her failing strength. She couldn't budge it at all, and the man was now pressing his foot down slowly, and more as the seconds passed.

Hope knew there was no point in trying to plead with the man for him to show an ounce of mercy and kindness and to let her go, to let her try to find Lyall and head for home. It was hopeless. She certainly had no strength left in her to even summon as much breath in her lungs as possible and cry for help, hoping Lyall came again.

Her life was now in this _monster's_ hands, and there was nothing she could do or say to him that was going to sway this cruel creature's dark desire.

What happened next, however, as the stranger knelt down to her level to better look his prey in the eyes could not be described, for one minute, the man was on the ground and next…he wasn't.

Some unknown, unnaturally strong force, followed by a burst of a strange red light that didn't look like it came from the discharge of any firearm that Hope had ever seen in her life (not that she spent much time around men with guns!), had lifted the strange man in the woods clean off his feet and hurtling in the air away from Hope.

The man, whose name, though not yet revealed to Hope Howell, was Fenrir Greyback, werewolf and exiled wizard shunned by the society of his kind, exhaled sharply in shocked, horrible confusion.

It only took the savage werewolf half a second to realize as his would-be-assailant stepped from the shadows, that he recognized this new wizard.

A fit man, even at the age of sixty-two or so, give or take a few years, stepped out from behind the trunk of a particularly large oak, his bright blue coat standing out against the din of the dark woods.

The older wizard's face was pulled taut and tight with rage as a gust of wind swept his thick tuft of white hair off of his forehead and away from his face was the last thing Fenrir Greyback saw before famed Magizoologist Newt Scamander pointed his wand squarely at Greyback's broad, if not slightly hairy chest, and he was fiercely thrown several yards from the place where he'd once knelt in front of the young helpless Muggle woman he'd been about to have a little fun with before playing with his next meal.

His broad, flailing body hit the hard, earthen floor at long last with a rather sickening thud. Greyback made one single attempt to move but let out a pained groan as it felt as though a chunk of stone were pushing down on his chest.

Whatever the Ministry employee had done to him had rendered him immobile and effectively paralyzed. Greyback let out a pained groan that sounded more in actuality like that of a snarl before the savage beast laid back down. One of his fingers gave a brief, spasmodic twitch, and he moved no more after that moment, the girl saw.

Hope fought desperately to try to keep her heavily lidded eyes open as best as she could, the rough, grating scream of the stranger's having forced the young brunette woman from her state of fading semi-consciousness for a brief moment.

Through the thick haze in her mind, she could see a man was now standing in front of her…protecting her, he appeared to be in the midst of, though Hope barely had the strength to lift her head and see more of her savior other than his trousers and the tail end of a bright blue woolen trench coat that she knew did not belong to Lupin.

Lyall's jacket was brown and tattered, and she had been wearing it, more to the point, besides, until in the struggle, the now-unconscious man who had kidnapped her had shrugged it off her.

Before the unconscious form of Fenrir Greyback, and the rapidly fading form of Hope Howell, stood Newt Scamander, who, currently in his anger and rage, was resembling more of an infuriated animal than that of a normal wizard.

His normally quite kind and slightly lined and weathered face was contorted into a look of fiery rage as even when standing upright, it seemed as though he towered over Fenrir Greyback, who still lay sprawling and motionless on the ground.

Newt Scamander's fists were clenched, his knuckles white-boned and practically shaking, and his thick tuft of luscious white hair that looked like it had a mind of its own and stuck up in tufts and clumps every which way, was wild and disheveled, though that could have been from the skirmish, however, close friends and family of Scamander's would tell that was just how it was.

His unmistakable crouching body language made it very clear to the savage beast lying unresponsive on the forest floor a few feet away from him made it quite plain to Greyback that Scamander was not planning on letting the wolf get anywhere near the poor girl, whose cries for help he'd heard in the distant woods not long ago.

At that moment, as Newt gnashed his teeth together in anger, he did not care what happened, as long as the young woman nearby was kept safe. He had come to check on his protégé, Lyall Lupin's progress at riding the forest of the particularly troublesome boggart in this thick Welsh forest, and he was grateful now that he'd thought to leave the comfort of his warm bed, despite his wife, Tina's insistence that he remain.

The last thing Hope Howell felt before she lost all her grasp on the current reality of her situation was two gentle but powerful, warm arms gingerly grasping onto her middle and lifting her off the ground, careful to be mindful of any injuries.

She flickered her eyes open, forcing herself to meet the man's gaze, and was relieved to see Lyall's concerned face, staring back at her. She almost wanted to weep but lacked the strength.

The last thought Hope Howell had before she lost complete consciousness, was that God had indeed answered her prayers of sending someone to guide her through these wretched dark woods and keep her safe while on her trek home from work. Hope blinked owlishly at Lyall Lupin, though her attention was momentarily pulled from her new acquaintance and to the new arrival.

She could just barely make out the face of the older man standing almost shoulder-to-shoulder next to Lyall Lupin's left side, how he loomed over her, seeming to try to look into her pupils, before fading off completely and going limp in Lupin's arms, thinking that she could not explain the events that occurred to herself if her life depended on it and that she was going to have some explaining to do whenever she woke up again.

If only she could have known how right she was.

* * *

**Yay, Newt to the rescue! Coming up in Ch. 8, Newt and Lyall discuss what to do with poor unconscious Hope, who's having a really bad night, I would say!**


	8. What to Do with Her

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**CHAPTER EIGHT**

**XXXX**

**LYALL** paused to draw in a breath, not sure he could explain what happened to him if he tried. Nor had he anticipated to find his mentor, Mr. Scamander in the boggart-infested Welsh forest tonight alongside himself and Miss Howell, but then again, stranger things had happened to him.

It was as if the moment his eyes had laid sight on the tall, towering man tormenting the poor young Muggle woman who he had taken a liking to, it was then that he saw nothing but red at the edges of his vision as everything else in these wretched woods faded away to nothingness and Lyall allowed his hidden, chained ferocity and rage to completely consume him for the first time at the ripe young age of merely thirty years old.

He and Newt stood there in the forest clearing now in silence, heavily panting, with Miss Howell clutched firmly in Lyall's arms.

One glance over at Mr. Scamander was more than enough for Lyall. Both wizards knew they could not linger in this forest for much longer.

The wounded man whom Newt had taken care of at the last possible minute would be awakening soon from whatever Scamander had hit him with, a Stinging Jinx and a Full-Bind Body Curse from the looks of it, and Lyall knew he did not want Miss Howell anywhere _near_ this stranger's vicinity when he did.

It was already bad enough the man had tortured Hope enough to the point where she'd lost consciousness.

Breathing out a tired, relieved breath, Lyall slowly rose up to his full height, the woman still tightly held bridal style in his arms.

Hope's eyes were closed, and her delicately arched brows knitted together with worry and fear. The young brunette's mouth, complete with a bleeding cut on her lower lip, was set in a pout and she looked quite pale. Almost ashen. Entirely too peaky for Lyall to consider it a healthy look.

Lyall felt a surge of panic course through his veins as he immediately put a shaking hand on Hope's chest, careful to avoid the several painful-looking scratch marks that littered her collarbone.

He breathed out an audible sigh of relief, as did Newt, when the pair of men felt and noticed the faint rising and falling of her chest, indicating the poor Muggle woman was at least still breathing.

"Here, this should help you to see better, Lupin," Newt muttered in his quiet, tenor-like voice that now held a slight warble to it, indicating that the sixty-two-year-old himself was quite shaken up by the turn of events he had stumbled across.

Lyall was instantly rewarded with bright burning light from the tip of Newt's wand as Newt slowly lowered it to Hope's face.

It was just enough light for Lyall to assess Miss Howell's injuries.

"Thanks," he muttered, shooting his mentor at the Ministry a grateful look with his eyes, silently trying to convey to Newt his thanks.

Newt Scamander shot him back a look that suggested to Lupin that he did not need to do so.

"Wh—what _happened_?" Lyall stammered, doing his best to quell back the tremor in his voice, though it was becoming increasingly difficult to do so. His gaze flitted towards the unconscious but the slightly stirring figure of the hulking brute who had attacked poor Miss Howell a moment ago. "What's his name? I want a _name_ , Newt!"

His head whiplashed sharply upwards to regard Newt Scamander, who had stridden over towards the unconscious beast laying sprawled a few feet away from Miss Howell and was rummaging through the tramp's trench coat pockets, searching for any sign of a wand or identification.

"I don't know, Lyall, he carries no wand, and I can find no other form of identification on his person, Mr. Lupin," came Newt's quiet, shy voice, almost sounding apologetic as he finished his brief pat-down of this new he-stranger in the woods, before standing upright and straightening his posture. Lyall felt his temper surge to new levels.

"That isn't _good_ enough, Scamander!" he barked in a hoarse voice. "I want a _name_ , Newt! _Now_!"

Lyall exhaled shakily as he turned his gaze back towards the unconscious woman's limp and unresponsive figure in his arms, not allowing himself a moment to see his colleague's reaction, which was a good thing, otherwise, he would have seen Newt visibly take a step back, a look of shock and anger and hurt flitting across his features.

He took a closer look at Hope Howell's chest, which seemed to be the primary location of the most serious of the young Muggle woman's wounds.

The buttons of her black silk blouse were half unbuttoned and almost torn open, and for a moment, Lyall felt a fiery heat creep to his cheeks as he sharply turned his head away, thinking he had no right to see Hope in such an intimate way.

"Mr. Lupin," came Newt's voice in a cautious, yet firm tone, and there was a hint of steel in his mentor's voice that told the young thirty-year-old wizard that he had to look Scamander in the eye.

So, perhaps against his better judgment, he did.

"Lyall, I _must_ ask you to remain _calm_ ," came Newt's voice, the aging, older wizard's voice sounding slightly warbled and rather far away.

Lupin offered a curt nod in response, and yet, he could not seem to tear his gaze away from Hope's now ashen face.

Four angry, red marks that looked like claw marks ran from her left collarbone, and down her chest, plunging deep within her blouse and beyond Lyall's line of sight.

Lyall furrowed his brows into a frown. This was the work of no wizard that he knew, but a _beast_. For what wizard with _noble_ intentions would lay harm to a poor, defenseless beautiful young Muggle girl lost in the woods and utterly alone?

Miss Howell must have been terrified and not to mention, surely felt excruciating pain from her injury, whatever that monstrous brute had done.

Lyall did not immediately answer Newt as he felt a muscle in his jaw twitch as he looked over the young Muggle's body a bit more, noticing dark bruises that were purpling on her shoulders and arms, in the unmistakable form of claw markings.

Surely, where the stranger had grabbed Hope. Lyall let out a low, threatening growl from the back of his throat as he closed his eyes, seriously needing a moment to get his temper handled. Hope did not deserve this, not in the slightest.

Breathing in what he hoped was a steadying breath, Lyall opened his eyes and whiplashed his gaze sharply upright to regard his older mentor.

Miss Howell needed him to be calm now.

He could not afford to risk losing his temper and possibly killing the man who had attacked her, wasting all his energy being angry at the brute in this exact moment, though he wanted it so badly, that it physically ached, sending swells of pain throughout his chest and to the tips of his toes.

He had to keep a clear head so he could focus on treating Hope's injuries, and possibly escorting her to St. Mungo's if she needed a trained Healer.

But that was easier said than done. Miss Howell looked so small and vulnerably laying in his arms.

As if she were made of the most delicate of china, the most fragile glass. As if just touching her with the pads of his fingers could cause her to shatter.

Her wounded cheekbone stood out against her clammy, bone-white skin and his gaze wandered towards the obvious fingermarks, more like that of claws, around the column of her throat, both wounds inflicted upon her because Hope had somehow wandered off, stepping in harm's way yet again.

But _why_? Why had she?! Why had he left her alone in the forest clearing? Why hadn't he stayed with her? She had practically _begged_ him not to leave her side, and he had not listened, and now look what happened.

Why wasn't he helping her? Why couldn't he move, much less feel like he could breathe at all?!

Newt Scamander knelt down on the other side of Lyall, a hand resting against Hope's forehead.

He began to feel the young brunette's arms as well, looking for any hint of the onset of fever, any further signs of moisture, or unseen injuries. When Scamander had finished, the aging old wizard puffed out his cheeks in an audible sigh of relief before raising his head, brushing a lock of white hair out of his face to better meet Lupin's panic-stricken face and moisture-filled eyes.

"Lyall, _please_ , you must listen to me," he coaxed, trying yet again, to get his young protégé's attention. It was easier said than done because Lyall Lupin had still not reacted to his unexpected presence here in these Welsh woods at all. "I don't know who she is, but I can tell she means something to you. Whoever she is, she is _fine_. Do you understand me, Mr. Lupin? She—" He started to say, but his gaze trailed off as he caught sight of Miss Howell's black faux crocodile skin leather purse resting idly near her feet a few yards away.

Newt's already pale face rapidly drained of colors as his bright blue eyes darkened in anger.

Lyall heard him huff in frustration as he stood up, rising to his full height, and growled, yes, _growled_ in frustration as he stomped towards the young Muggle woman's bag, kneeling into a crouch to pick it up with his thumb and index finger, holding the bag out in front of him as though the object were riddled with infectious diseases and scrunching his nose in utter disgust.

"What _is_ this?!" Scamander exclaimed, almost violently, holding the young woman's purse out in front of him and cocking his head to the side, seeming to find it curious as he narrowed his gaze.

Lyall felt his temper surge and course through his bloodstream, igniting the blood in his veins hot like dragon fire as his annoyance with Scamander's natural ability to become so easily distracted and lose focus of what was most important here, threatened to consume him.

"I believe the Muggle women call it a _purse_. They carry things in them, like money. So do witches, Newt, are you truly that _daft_ you don't know that?" Lyall barked in a rough, coarse sounding voice as his gaze lifted upward to regard his mentor, a look of shock upon his features. "Newt, is this _really_ necessary? What's wrong?"

To Scamander's credit, the aging Magizoologist ignored the harsh bite of Lyall's cutting remarks.

"This doesn't look like any dragonhide I recognize," Newt answered in a solemn, somber tone as he continued to hold out Hope's purse in front of him, a look on his face that suggested he'd like nothing more than to cast a well-aimed Incendio Charm on the young Muggle's black bag.

Lyall stared in an incredulous, disbelieving manner at the sixty-two-year-old wizard, hardly daring to believe the words coming out of his mouth.

He looked at Scamander as though Newt had sprouted a pair of antlers on top of his head.

" _Newt_!" he bellowed, the worst of his temper threatening to implode to the surface as the last vestiges of his patience felt like they had snapped. "I cannot _believe_ what I am hearing. How—how can you _possibly_ be worried about the material of her bag when Miss Howell's life is in _danger_?!"

"Not in danger, Lyall, not by a long shot, sir," Newt Scamander answered simply in a matter-of-fact tone, casting one last withering look of disgust at the young woman's bag before unceremoniously plunking it by the young woman's feet, letting Lyall deal with it. "I already told you, Mr. Lupin. The witch is _fine_ …"

"She's not a witch, Newt. She—she's a Muggle. And her name is Hope. Hope Howell," Lyall immediately corrected, still feeling anger surge within himself at Newt's rather strange behavior.

With such a painstaking slowness, the young Ministry employee raised his eyes to the famed and renowned Magizoologist.

In the pitch-black darkness that surrounded the three of them, Newt could see just how much color Lyall too had lost.

This little incident with the Muggle tramp tormenting the poor young Muggle woman in the woods had clearly shaken Lupin to his core. Badly.

"H—how is this _fine_ , Newt?!"

His words came out sharper than Lyall meant them to, and Scamander shirked away in both hurt and anger.

Lyall glanced down at Hope still in his arms. He could only imagine how the brute that Scamander had taken care of had probably hit and kicked the poor thing all over.

Any number of Hope Howell's bones could have been broken by that monster now lying mostly unresponsive on the forest floor.

Shifting Hope's limp form in his arms to distribute her weight better evenly, he allowed the pads of his free hand to gingerly ghost along her ribs.

They did not appear to be broken, thank Merlin, but if that man had wanted to snap poor Hope Howell's ribs, he would have had no trouble doing so, considering the man's impressive hulking size. He outweighed her by at least a ton.

In fact, it looked to Lyall as though the man, whoever the savage beast was, had actually taken great care to keep his torture of Hope minimal.

Of course, the young Muggle woman in his arms was still looking quite hurt and in dire need of medical attention, and soon, but this nameless he-stranger in the woods was capable of such brutality.

He'd quickly proven that to Scamander. Lyall was not sure why the stranger had held back unless it was to keep Miss Howell alive longer, so the man could save his harshest torture for the end.

He closed his eyes and let out a sigh.

It made him so _angry_ to think of anyone hurting this celestial-like creature from his dreams, his nightmares, and with absolutely no other reason beyond it than to see Hope suffer.

Lyall furrowed his brows in a frown as he waited for his Ministry colleague and mentor to answer him, who was looking rather hurt at Lyall's outburst, shooting Lupin a pointed expression.

Newt hardened his own expression in response to Lyall's aggression towards his statement and replied in a curt and clipped tone with no semblances of warmth, eager to get his point across.

"Because the young woman's health is not in any immediate danger, at least not that I can see. If you know of a place that we could take her, I could ensure to it she receives proper treatment for any wounds the man might have inflicted. Is there a place?"

Lyall's frown deepened as he looked down at Hope's head lolling back against the crook of his elbow and reached up a somewhat shaking hand to brush a dark chocolate strand of her hair out of her eyes tenderly.

"I—I was in the midst of escorting her home," he began hesitantly, looking up towards Newt, who quickly nodded. "But she…she didn't get a chance to tell me where her home is. I don't know the address, Newt."

Newt blanched, resisting the urge to groan at the implication of the undertones of what Lyall was hinting. He did not particularly like the look of shock and concern that had snaked its way onto poor Lupin's face. But neither did Newt relish the idea of looking at the young Muggle woman's limp and rather sickly form.

She truly did not look well at all, this killer of magical creatures, Newt thought, furrowing his brows and pulling a face of disgust as he looked once more toward her bag. Even if he did not particularly approve of the way Lyall was gazing at Miss Howell, Scamander knew he would never hear the end of it from Tina if he allowed the young woman in need of medical attention to be turned away in anger or spite, as Tina liked Lyall, considered the protégé of her husband's a dear friend.

Not bothering to tamper down the groan that escaped his lips, Newt let himself sigh in an unrestrained fashion as he turned away for a moment, seizing on tufts of his thick, short-cropped white hair and tugging on them so hard that he swore he heard the roots scream in protest.

_Must be a result of that new shampoo Tina makes me use_ , Newt thought darkly to himself before turning around again to better look Lyall Lupin in his eyes.

He froze. If it was at all possible, Lyall had paled a shade further and his hands, despite clutching tightly into an ironclad grip on the young woman's form, were shaking. Badly. Almost to the point of dropping the girl.

"Lyall," Newt began hesitantly, trying in some way, shape, or form, to offer his coworker some comfort. He did not know what to say or do. He did not want to give the man false hope, and yet, the man looked vulnerable.

His heart tightened to the point where it was almost unbearable, and the wizard sincerely hoped he wasn't suffering from a complaint of the heart. He was only sixty-two, by Merlin's Beard, entirely too young for one!

And yet, Newt could not explain why this animal-killing Muggle woman was causing such a reaction out of his Ministry colleague.

He did not want to see Lupin so worried and upset, but nor did he relish the idea of allowing essentially a stranger, Muggle woman or not, into his home and alongside his Tina. He let out a sigh.

_Tina would never let me hear the end of it if I don't help_ , he thought, feeling an abrupt bitterness settle into the pit of his stomach.

Groaning in frustration, Newt let himself sigh once more before seeming to find his words.

"She will require medical attention. And forgive me, Mr. Lupin, but I must ask," he said, speaking slowly and carefully. "Does she know the _truth_ , Lyall?" he questioned, his tone solemn and somber, as he wildly gesticulated, speaking with his hands to himself, pointing to his wand, asking if the girl knew of their magic and if Lyall had disclosed to the woman yet that he was a wizard.

"No," answered Lyall, sounding utterly ashamed, and he ducked his head to avoid looking Newt in the eyes.

_Well. That's just great_ , Newt thought bitterly. _On top of having an injured Muggle in our home, she doesn't know the truth, which isn't going to be pretty for her_.

He merely grunted in response when Lupin took a few cautious steps forward, not relinquishing his tight grip on the young brunette woman in his arms as he moved to stand next to Scamander.

Newt felt Lyall give a start when the sound of rustling and a twig snapping from behind them caused their ears to perk up at the noise.

"Merlin help me, give me strength," Lyall growled through gritted teeth, whiplashing his head behind his shoulder to peer over it.

The stranger who had attacked Miss Howell was slowly rousing from consciousness. It wouldn't be long now before the brute would be fully awakened.

" _Please_ ," Lyall begged, unable to keep the note of desperation from seeping its way unbidden to the surface of his quiet voice.

That was the breaking point of Newt Scamander's indecision.

He offered Lupin a curt nod of his head in a silent agreement and held out his hand to place it on Lupin's shoulder, giving it an affectionate little squeeze.

"She will stay with Tina and me for this weekend until she is recovered and well enough to return to her own home," Newt snapped in an authoritative voice that pained him to speak this way to his younger colleague, as he quickly knelt to pick up the young woman's black leather crocodile skin purse, but not before giving it a scathing look and his frown deepened as he held onto the strange foreign thing. "You may visit with her. I shan't keep you from seeing her, but on the condition, you allow Jacob to speak with her _first_. Considering the two are both Muggles, she will need someone like her to help get used to the shock."

Lyall swallowed thickly at the idea of confessing to Hope Howell the truth that he was a wizard, much less revealing the existence of the magical world in parallel to hers.

He was of a firm belief the time wasn't right at all, thinking that the shock of such a revelation would be too much strain for her to handle in addition to recovering from what was likely a traumatic event for her, but the hardened look of steel in Scamander's eyes silently told him those were the conditions of his terms.

Lupin quickly nodded his agreement and did not hesitate to take Newt Scamander's hand, closing his eyes and allowing Newt to lead him towards his home, with Scamander not even thinking about where the three of them wanted to go, Hope Howell still held in his arms.

He vowed as the three of them Disapparated, leaving the savage Muggle tramp that had attacked her, to rouse from his unconsciousness on his own in the woods, that he would never let the young Muggle woman in his arms go if he could help it.

No. He would stay by Hope's side. He could only hope that when she woke, she would take the news well.

The one thought that plagued him the moment they Apparated onto the front porch of Scamander's home and Newt quickly ushered Lyall and Hope inside, was that by agreeing to this arrangement of Newt's, in exchange for Hope to receive medical treatment, Lyall would tell her the full, honest truth, that this was not a grave mistake…

* * *

**Glad Newt is letting them stay**! **Coming up in Ch. 9,Hope regains consciousness and has a talk with her two saviors of the night while attempting to come to terms with an otherwise stressful evening that started as a walk in the woods...**


	9. Hello, Again

**9**

**HOPE** blinked, as the comforting feeling of warmth greeted the young brunette Muggle as she slowly returned to consciousness and the land of the living.

She blinked her lids again, forcefully at first, struggling to free her eyelashes from the crusted 'sleep' that had accumulated.

Hope didn't know how long she'd been asleep for, for the crusted mess did not want to so easily be removed, and Hope was forced to scrub away the rest of the gunk with the heel of her hand. Hope let out a hiss of pain as she realized it was the hand that she'd used to try to fend off her would-be attacker.

She gritted her teeth as she waited impatiently for the pain to subside. Her brow furrowed as she slowly sat up against the mountain of pillows, her coverings a mixture of goose feather down blankets, woolen blankets, and even Lyall's heavy brown coat. She opened her mouth to voice her concern at not knowing where she was, where Lupin had brought her, and yet found her throat terribly parched, rendering her mute for the time being until she could get a drink of water.

Hope let out a tired sigh and collapsed her head back against the pillows her back rested behind, thinking that, if anything, the blankets must be a sign that she was safe and the fact that she had Lyall's jacket back. She doubted the man who had attempted to do such unspeakable things to her back in those woods, if he had, in fact, kidnapped her, as Hope briefly feared, would have gone out of his way to ensure she was comfortable.

Hope swallowed down thickly past the lump in her throat as flashes of her memories flitted through the forefront of her mind, as if she were watching random images on a television.

Visions of both of those bad men's faces, what either one of them would have done to her were it not for Lyall arriving when he did and that other bloke with the strange blue coat with the coattails. The memories interrupted her brief moment of tranquility as she sat up straight in the bed, the mountain of pillows tucked behind her head resting against the wooden headboard, thrusting the young woman back under the clutches of a hairy, clawed hand with long, blackened dirtied fingernails and piercing pale blue eyes.

Hope released a less than dignified whimper from the back of her throat and buried her face in her hands, hating the constrictive feeling of her throat hollowing. The awful swarm of memories buzzing and flitting around in her mind like a hive passed within mere moments, leaving poor Hope Howell breathless and utterly exhausted. Although conscious, her sense of awareness and where she was had dimmed to almost nothing, and she was finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate on anything but what had happened to her.

Hope slowly inhaled, holding it for a long moment, savoring it, allowing the smell of the fire crackling in the fireplace—who had a _fireplace_ in their _bedroom_ , for God's sake? Hope was quite certain she'd never seen anything like it before. A most peculiar sight. She furrowed her brows, casting a wary glance towards the lit fire in the hearth as the logs crackled and popped, the smell of pinewood and oak assaulting her flaring nostrils. Then her mind sprung forward and the little unfamiliar bedroom around her came rushing up to meet her now that she was aware. If she strained her ears to hear, Hope swore she could hear the distant echoing of water-logged voices, men's voices, arguing, just beyond the closed bedroom door. She fell silent and slowed her breathing to almost a standstill, catching only snippets of the conversation.

Her spirits lifted greatly as she swore she could recognize Lyall's quiet and reserved tone, though in the moment, the man sounded angrier than she had ever heard him thus far in their short acquaintance tonight.

"…twenty Galleons, Newt, it's all I have, but won't you and your wife _please_ take it?" came a man's quiet, shy tone. "It's the least you and Tina can do for me for letting Hope stay here for the weekend to recover. I don't want to send her alone to go back home if that stranger from the woods is after her. Plus, the murders that have been going on here…I'd be willing to bet my life's savings it's a wizard's work. The _signs_ are all there, Newt, there's _no_ evidence. For all we know, the man that attacked Miss Howell in the woods tonight is the one who could be behind them. He needs to be found and brought in for questioning, Mr. Scamander."

His voice faded away as he trailed off and did not bother to finish whatever thought was ailing his mind.

The anger and indignation in Lupin's quiet, somewhat shy voice gave her a weak warm feeling in the bottom of her stomach, and her dark brown eyes widened in awe.

_Wizard_? _Did he just say...wizard?!_

Hope pursed her lips into a thin, rigid, and unmovable line as her mind struggled to process the snippet of conversation she'd just eavesdropped on accidentally.

_As in…a magical wizard? What is going on?! First, the man back in the woods was spouting this nonsense, and now it's Lyall_! Her heart sank as she realized she was forced to come to the possible conclusion that perhaps Mr. Lupin was touched.

She released the breath she had been holding, slowly, she felt a great deal of tension leave her shoulders. Again. So concentrated on this was Hope that she did not allow herself to hear whatever the other strange man, Newt, said to Lyall by way of response. For now, all that mattered was calming down her breathing back to normal.

_Good_ , she thought encouragingly to herself. _Breathe_. _Just breathe. Don't let yourself lose control again, Hope_. If there was one thing Hope knew for certain, it was that it was much too soon for her to revisit those fresh, terrible memories in her mind. If she were to allow herself to, the only thing she would succeed in doing is sending herself into a panic and she could not afford that. _Not right now_ , she thought, closing her eyes.

But then again, if _not_ now, then _when_? When would she be able to confront her fears of what had almost happened to her, twice in one night, by two incredibly different, and equally intimidating, hulking strangers?

She felt like she was utterly drowning in it, choking to death on just the sheer powerful memories of their faces.

Hope was breaking, cracked, and taped together at the edges. Well, that metaphorical tape was now unraveling, and there was no preventing it from happening to her.

So, with great reluctance, and perhaps even shame, Hope allowed her mind to just…collapse in on itself.

With each horrible memory of the taxing events of this evening, each sound, visual remembrance that flitted so fleetingly through the darkest recesses of her tormented mind, heart, and even to a lesser extent, her very soul, Hope spiraled in and out of control, like a torpid whirlwind.

The horrible bout of silence that now filled this strange little bedroom covered with an assortment of knickknacks on the shelves that littered the walls, the likes of which Hope had never seen such objects before, filled her with such a horrible anguish, she wanted nothing more than to throw back her head and _scream_!

She felt sure that Lyall Lupin would _hate_ her now, for having to save her twice in the span of a single night, and now, to make matters even worse, it sounded as though she had inadvertently gotten one of his friends, or perhaps a colleague from work, whatever job he held, involved in her unorthodox rescue.

Even now, in her mind, a vision of Lyall's handsome face permeated her thoughts, though now, instead of seeing his kind white smile, the way his one dimple at the left side of his mouth crinkled, or how his hazel eyes had seemed to twinkle whenever he looked at her, the phantasm her troubled mind had created, his face now scowled at her with a horrible bitterness and resentment.

Lyall was sure to despise her, resent her, even blame her for having to save her life and trouble himself! Oh, could this night possibly get any _worse_ for her?!

Hopefully not. A knock, a light rapping of knuckles on the door startled Hope out of her dark swirling vortex of thoughts, and her head whiplashed sharply upward, a startled cry upon her lips as the door opened gently, and there stood Lyall in the entryway, looking worried, but cautiously optimistic, looking relieved to see that Hope was awake.

"Miss Howell. I'm…relieved to see that you are awake. Hello again," Lyall muttered, forcing a small smile, though it was strained, as he took a few more cautious steps into the room, glancing nervously about the room this way and that, seeming to be nervous about the idea of offending her in any way.

In his hands, he carried a heavily laden supper tray, with what looked to be a steaming cup of freshly made hot soup and a few slices of hot freshly buttered toast.

The smile on Lupin's face was admittedly strained, showing the tightness around his light hazel eyes, and yet, it was a smile of relief and possibly the beginnings of affection, nonetheless.

The fire from the fireplace behind him that he now stood in front of flickered and danced, casting odd shadows about the room in unequal distribution, for a moment, bathing his face in the darkness, rendering it difficult for Hope to make out his expression, though the moment he stepped forward and into the light more, she could better see Lyall's face.

Hope opened her mouth to speak, yet it felt as though there were a gag on her mouth, for her tongue felt thick in her mouth, the words clinging to the inside of her throat, unwilling to come forth and tell Lyall how sorry she was that he'd have to save her, and his friend, besides.

The edges of his vision blurred and stung with a fresh bought of tears, spilling from her lids and down her pale, bruised cheeks in an unrelenting stream that showed no signs of stopping anytime soon.

She had no room left within herself for false facades of strength, nor the ability to maintain what she considered her cherry disposition.

Hope swallowed thickly down past the constricting lump in her throat and managed to somehow, by a miracle of God, find her voice.

"Will you…sit with me? I…I don't want to be alone right now, Lyall. _Please_?" she begged, biting down on her bottom lip, falling silent.

Her voice sounded incredibly small and meek, not to mention hoarse from lack of water, but she was relieved when Lyall quickly nodded his agreement, pulling up a wooden chair that had been sitting idly in a far corner of the room, wincing as the legs of the chair scraped rather noisily across the polished hardwood floors of the room.

For the longest time, as Lyall got himself situated, setting the tray of food he'd brought with him onto a small wooden night table next to the right of the bed Hope was resting in, nothing was spoken between the pair of them, and Hope wondered if perhaps she had offended Lyall with her unusual request, but she had spoken the truth.

She did _not_ want to be alone right now.

It was then that another thought occurred to her as she looked towards Lyall, who continued to cast her apprehensive glances, as though afraid of another meltdown. She furrowed her brows into a slight frown.

But where on earth was this Newt character who had also assisted in saving her life tonight? Where was that man? Was he here?

"Wh…where _am_ I, Lyall?" Hope breathed, glancing out the admittedly strange bedroom as she sniffed once or twice, the last of her tears now thankfully spent…for now.

The moment Lyall opened his lips to speak, Hope fully expected to hear the man's soft, pleasant voice again, though a new voice rent the otherwise silent air in the bedroom, coming directly from the open door's entryway.

"You're in _my_ home, Miss Howell," came an old man's slightly warbling but still pleasant enough voice, also soft.

Hope's eyes widened as she took a good long look at her other savior. He appeared to be a man in his early to mid-sixties, but still quite agile from what Hope could tell.

Dressed in a simple pair of grey trousers and a sweater vest, Hope was almost disappointed to see the man was not wearing that bright blue coat from earlier.

Experience danced upon the man's thin lips like a curious child as the man stepped rather spryly into the room, though Hope noticed he pulled a face once or twice at the stiffness in his joints, perhaps the beginnings of arthritis or lumbago at his age, if Hope had to guess.

The man let out a haggard sigh, feeling a vein twitch in his brow as he carded his fingers through his thick, surprisingly luscious tuft of short-cropped white hair that was rather disheveled, curling at the ends, and looked to have a mind of its own that no comb could ever tame.

"If you would rather stay somewhere else, Miss Howell, I am sure that Mr. Lupin here would be more than happy to make those arrangements for you," the man spoke up.

Hope's eyes widened as she abruptly shook her head. What could have possibly given this fellow the idea that she did not like it here, that she was not at all grateful?

"No, no, th—that's all right, sir. I…thank you, for saving my life tonight, sir. You must be, ah, Newt?"

She watched, interestedly, as the man seemed to give a start upon Hope uttering his first name, though the aging man quickly recovered and pulled up a chair to situate himself at a comfortable enough distance from the bed, enough to give Hope and Lyall their space, but still, nevertheless, it looked as though he wished to talk to her.

"I am. Newt Scamander, at your service, Miss Howell," the old man mumbled, smoothing his white bangs back away from his forehead. He glanced towards Lyall, seemingly for confirmation, who nodded. "And you are Miss Hope Howell, would I be correct in saying that?"

Hope nodded, swallowing hard as she struggled to gauze the older man's reaction. There was no hint of ill will or malice that she could detect in the man's eyes.

Hope looked around the room, searching for something, anything, that she could use to start a conversation with.

"You, ah, have a lovely home, sir."

His lined and slightly red, weather-beaten face brightened at her words, and Hope could tell the compliment had cheered the aging bloke up a bit.

If judging by the way Newt sat up straighter in his chair was any indication and Hope barely repressed her tiny smile of satisfaction at how Lyall was looking pleased.

Pleased, she thought, that Hope had the good graces enough to pay respect towards the man who'd helped Lyall save her life tonight from that stranger in the woods and now was giving her a room in his home.

"Thank you," Newt answered in a polite, courteous tone. "Most of the decorations are my wife, Tina's, who I hope you'll meet in a little while if you're feeling up to receiving visitors once you've eaten a little something."

Newt let out a light little chuckle as he rested his cheek in his right fist, leaning forward a bit in his chair.

Though, as Hope frowned slightly, she found he was not looking at her, per se, but rather, over at Lyall. Intrigued and finding her curiosity piqued at the old man's shift in countenance, Hope swiveled her gaze and looked at Lyall, turning her head just slightly, to find the man was staring at her, a dazed expression on his face.

Hope shoved her knuckles in her mouth to silence the little giggle that threatened to escape her lips as she swore a light pink blush speckled along Lyall's cheeks, before he looked away, turning his head to the side to cough, though she knew he needed a moment to recover.

"I—it's good to see you're all right, Hope," Lyall said, turning his gaze back around to regard Hope, and Hope found her eyes softening at this upon hearing his words.

"I am, thanks to you," Hope whispered, shooting him a shy smile that had rendered Lyall Lupin quite speechless.

* * *

_I am, thanks to you_. Hope's words reverberated in his mind. Lyall found his whole body seizing up and tensing the moment the words were out of Hope Howell's mouth.

It felt as though he had lost all sense of self. She was…thanking him…for saving her life when any other man with a good head of sense on his shoulders would have done the exact same thing that he and Newt had.

So engrossed in his staring of the beautiful young Muggle woman who had almost effortlessly captured his attentions tonight in just the span of an hour or two, that he hardly noticed Newt rising from his chair, mumbling something about giving the two of them a moment, before promising Hope he'd send his wife, Tina, in to meet with Hope and provide her with another friendly face in the hopes of cheering her up after the horrible night she'd had.

"Are you hungry, Hope?" Lyall asked after quite a long time of nothing being said between the two of them.

Lyall almost found himself stammering out an apology, cursing himself inwardly for being so nervous around this young woman, but he held his tongue and instead waited for her answer. It didn't take long for it.

"I am, actually," Hope whispered, glancing down at her bandaged hands resting in her lap, not realizing she'd clutched onto fistfuls of the thick woolen blanket in the process. Embarrassment was evident in her kind voice.

"Here, there's a tray that Newt's wife made for you. Tina, she—she didn't know what you'd might like, so she settled for a chicken broth and some bread. I hope that's okay," Lyall said, reaching across his chair to handle the tray and settle it delicately on Hope's lap, but not before propping up and fluffing her pillows to better support her back.

"Thank you," she said steadily, lifting her gaze to meet Lupin's. "I'll be sure to thank Mr. ah, Scamander's wife, too. What kind of a name _is_ that?" Hope muttered under her breath as she reached for the spoon to take a bite of soup, wincing at how hot it was, but finding it delicious, nonetheless. "Scamander," she murmured, letting the man's surname roll off her tongue as her brows furrowed. "Is it foreign? It doesn't sound like any name _I've_ ever heard," she wondered out loud, looking at him.

Lyall felt his face pale in shock as he pondered how to explain away the wizarding world's rather unique quirk of wizarding families providing their children with unusual names that would no doubt raise some eyebrows among those in the Muggle community, just as it had done to Hope, it would seem, judging by her expression.

"Ah, n—no," he stammered, feeling as though his blush were intensifying, at a loss for how to explain Newt's name, and his for that matter. He doubted there were few Muggle families in all of Great Britain with the surname of 'Lupin.' "Mr. Scamander has lived in Great Britain for years. He's a colleague of mine at work and a dear friend."

Hope nodded, satisfied with his answer for now, though she frowned as she glanced down at the heavily laden supper tray resting on her lap, thinking it was entirely too much food for her to eat in one sitting now.

"Aren't you going to eat too, Mr. Lupin? Surely, after everything you've done for me tonight, you're starved."

Lupin's brow furrowed in a frown as his mind processed her words. He wasn't used to a young woman asking him to eat with her, much less while she healed. "D—don't worry about me, Hope. I'm _fine_. Really. The food there, all of it is for you. You need to regain your strength, and the best way for you to do that is to _eat_."

The young brunette blinked owlishly at the tray on her lap, looking surprised at the amount of food she'd been given.

"But I couldn't possibly eat all of this, Lyall, it's entirely too much. Won't you take just a little bit of it?"

Lyall shook his head no, not wanting to let her push even an ounce of food that would serve her better than him onto him.

"I—I'm not hungry, Hope, but thank you," he quickly replied. And if he was being honest with himself, he really truly wasn't.

His stomach was so twisted into churning knots at the moment at relief at finding Hope relatively unharmed and now safe in a secure location, and at being in such close proximity to a beautiful young woman that was steadfast in holding such a grip over his heart, that she wasn't even aware. Lupin was still in awe of everything that had happened to him, and to her tonight. The night had started out so relatively ordinary, with his search in the Welsh forest for the boggart that had been plaguing that particular wood. How the series of events that had unfolded had led him directly in the path of this Muggle woman, and he found himself also in awe of _her_. Of Miss Howell.

Now that he was in an even closer, intimate proximity to the young brunette woman than he had been before, back in the forest, Lyall could finally catch a better glimpse of Hope Howell's dark brown eyes that almost matched the rich dark chocolate tones of her wavy hair.

They were beyond anything he could have ever imagined seeing in a young woman, Muggle or otherwise. Her eyes were bright…so full of hope, life, untapped potential, and promise. It was truly unlike anything Lyall had ever seen before.

The way she looked around with curiosity and wonderment in her dark brown eyes at the knickknacks that littered the wooden shelves of the room, souvenirs from Newt Scamander's travels in his youth, the way she focused, Lyall found he didn't even have to look that hard to be able to pick up how intelligent she was.

How smart he knew Hope to be. A beauty. An adorable little pout formed on her lips as she stuck out her bottom lip and bit down at his refusal to partake in some of the food Tina Scamander had prepared for her and once more, Lyall did not fight against the strange warmth welling in his chest, coupled with the strong desire not to leave this woman's side.

After all, he had done that once already tonight, with disastrous consequences. He never should have left Miss Howell alone to fend for herself, not even for five minutes.

With a little sigh, she finally gave up on her attempts to convince Lyall to take some of the food and collapsed her head back against the pile of pillows.

"Well, if you're sure," she grumbled in a defeated tone, leaving Lupin to watch in silence as Hope tore off a chunk of the buttered bread loaf and proceeded to dunk it into the chicken broth and began to eat, though it seemed with little enthusiasm.

He hoped he had not put her off her appetite by refusing to take any of the food.

Lyall decided for now to let her be and eat in silence, wanting her to get back her strength, even though he secretly still wanted to continue talking with Hope.

But for his part in all of this, it wasn't really like Lyall was carrying much of the conversation, however.

Any time he parted his lips open to speak in the effort to say something to Miss Howell, his mouth ran dry, his tongue felt thick, and his thoughts in his mind scatterbrained.

He longed to ask her if perhaps on Monday, when she returned to whatever job she held, or anytime next week, really, if she were feeling up to it, if she would like to join him for lunch. He could even pick her up from work, but Lyall lacked the courage to be so bold.

Which is why he was thrown off his guard and surprised when the sweet, soft, shy tones of Hope Howell's voice reached his throbbing eardrums once more, shattering the almost deafening silence, obviously still interested in someone like him, the likes of which Lupin could not begin to understand.

He was no one special, no one of real significance. His job managing Non- Spirituous Apparitions at the Ministry kept him busy. He didn't exactly have a wide social network of friends. Work colleagues, yes, but friends? Not so much.

He would go as far as to say that as of right now at the ripe age of thirty, his friends consisted of Newt Scamander, his wife Tina, and Tina's sister, Queenie, and her Muggle husband, Jacob, whom Lyall still harbored an inkling of hope towards that Newt would let Hope visit, and relatively soon, at that.

"You could have _left_ me back there in the woods, you know. Considering the trouble that I put you and Mr. Scamander through tonight, Mr. Lupin, you'd have been well within your rights to forgot about me and leave me behind."

Hope's words were soft, unassuming, and yet harbored no ill will nor hint of the blame for his actions. The shock and dawning horror must have been evident on his features, for Lyall felt his jaw drop open in his shock and his light hazel eyes widen at Hope's words.

Despite the growing anger in her savior's eyes at her words, Hope kept her gaze fixated on Lyall's eyes, unwilling for her words to lose any kind of meaning.

Hope swallowed thickly past the growing lump in her throat and continued, winding her hands around her cup of broth, staring down into the yellow liquid flecked with bits of carrots and other vegetables.

"But you _didn't_ , Lyall," Hope continued seriously, with just a hint of awe in her voice. "You saved me from both those men in the woods tonight, brought me back here," she added, glancing around in wonder at the bedroom they were in, "and treated my wounds," Hope sighed, lifting one of her bandaged hands from the soup mug and pursing her lips. "After all the trouble I caused you tonight, you _still_ saved my life." Hope paused, feeling her breaths catch in her throat, and fought against the urge to twist her hands painfully together out of a nervous habit, something she always did when nervous. "I surely don't deserve your kindness, but I want you to know that I'm truly grateful for it, Mr. Lupin. _Really_."

Her words now spent, Hope ducked her head so that a dark chocolate lock of her hair tumbled in front of her face, effectively shielding her reaction from Lyall's sight.

Lyall felt like his mind was reeling as his eyes widened and all he could do was stare at the bright young woman, hoping the fact that he was unable to tear his gaze away from her wasn't making her uncomfortable in any way.

Lupin nervously fidgeted with his fingers, weaving his fingers in between his knuckles while he wracked his brain for something to say that would put her at ease.

"You are a curious woman, indeed, Miss Howell," Lyall glanced towards the lit fireplace and stared into the flickering yellow, red and orange flames.

A welcome distraction, as he found Hope's gaze far too unnerving for his liking.

"I am glad that I was able to…save your life."

The young woman smiled gently at his words, and Lyall found that he loved it when she let him see her smile for himself.

And it was because of something that _he_ had done. He wanted to do it again, to give Miss Hope Howell a reason to smile, knowing it was because of him.

"You must be confused by how I even ended up in those woods, Mr. Lupin," Hope murmured, finally glancing up from her cup of soup to look Lyall in the eyes, realizing that he had seen what had happened with both those brutish pigs earlier tonight, as Lupin had been able to save her before anything too terrible happened.

He had, as it so happened, wondered several times what on earth a pretty young Muggle woman such as Hope was doing wandering alone in a thick Welsh boggart-infested forest, but just could not bring himself to ask, waiting to see if Hope would elaborate further.

She let out a deep, shuddering breath. "I…thank you, Lyall. For bringing me here and looking after me. I owe you one, it would seem," she let out a nervous chuckle.

"I can't imagine what that man would have done to you," Lyall muttered darkly, his light hazel eyes darkening to a rich brown in color as visions of the second wizard's face flitted in front of his vision. He didn't know who the monster was, but he'd find out.

Hope shuddered, silently nodding her agreement.

"Well… _thank_ you, Lyall, for making sure that _didn't_ happen," she said and bit her bottom lip. She leaned forward, and before she could lose her nerve or her newfound resolve, Lyall felt his entire body stiffen as Hope pressed her lips to his right cheek gently in a chaste and gentle kiss, letting her lips linger a moment that was perhaps longer than necessary, but she didn't care at all.

All it left was a little wet mark, a shallow pool of saliva on her cheek. But when Hope Howell planted the kiss there, Lyall found a warmth spreading through his limbs and his mind felt a pleasant, truly wonderful buzz.

Every good thing seemed possible, likely, even, with her at his side.

And then, Lyall knew he'd found what he'd been searching for in those woods tonight, and the boggart he'd saved Miss Howell from had nothing to do with it.

No. Lyall had been searching for someone to show him what it meant to be happy from the inside out, so his smile could finally be real for a change, and not a mask.

Lyall drew in a sharp breath as he heard Hope speak, barely a whisper as she drew back and smiled shyly.

"In your coat pocket, Mr. Lupin. Perhaps I can tell you how I ended up in that forest over a lunch on Monday if you have some free time?" she said in a soft voice, before setting the tray on the night table and collapsing her head back against the pillows when finished.

It didn't take Miss Howell long to fall asleep. She was fast asleep before Lupin could think to reply, to say yes, and he wasted no time in digging into his pocket. Somehow, the young woman had managed to slip a piece of paper into his pocket, but when did she write this?

_It must be her work address_ , he surmised, feeling like his cheeks were on fire as he rose from his chair and striding over to the door, intent to let her sleep for a bit.

The skin on his cheek tingled where Miss Howell had pressed her lips. The cold, soft brushing of her tender skin felt like it burned his skin, rendering his chest a constricting mess and his stomach twisting in an uncomfortable bundle of nerves and desire for Hope.

The moment her lips pressed against his cheek, his mind had gone utterly blank. His light brown eyes had traveled to her beautiful, flawless, perfect face, her sparkling dark chocolate eyes, and stunning brown hair.

Her beauty rocked Lyall Lupin to his core, and for a moment, the thirty-year-old wizard forgot who he was. And when she spoke, her soft voice, a voice he so desperately wanting to hear speak words of love and affection meant for him, and only him, he had frozen.

Lyall felt a muscle in his jaw stiffen as he gingerly closed the door behind him as he exited Hope's room, remembering the fear in her face as the second stranger, definitely no boggart, had reached for Miss Howell, the sound of how desperate her voice was as she cried for help. He made up his decision tonight, as he walked down the hallway that led towards Newt's living parlor.

He would not leave Miss Howell's side, no matter what. And he would finally be able to tell her the honest truth, that he was a wizard, over that cup of coffee on Monday.

* * *

**Yay, minor progress for Hope/Lyall. Glad those two finally got a moment to breathe after everything that's happened.**

**Ch. 10 flits back to present-day Lyall and checks in on Remadora and their adorable little Teddy to see how they're reacting to Lyall's story so far. Stay tuned for more!**


	10. Mulling over Marshmallows

**10**

**TONKS** regarded Lyall Lupin with no small measure of concern in her pale grey orbs as the flickering red and orange flames danced across her father-in-law's face as he paused to draw in a breath, suddenly seeming like he was growing weary with telling his grandson and his son and daughter-in-law the story of how he met Remus's mother.

The young witch and proud mother bit down on her bottom lip in a sudden fit of nervousness, gingerly reaching up and tucking a stray wisp of her pale pink short shaggy hair back behind her right ear where it belonged before leaning forward, heaving a small little groan as she forced herself off of Mr. Lupin's couch.

Tonks made it a point to wave her wand so that everyone's empty teacups flew gently through the air of their own accord and onto the metal tray she'd gotten from the kitchens.

"Everyone looks like they could do with a refill," she murmured quietly, her cheeks flushing rosy pink as five-year-old Teddy regarded his mother with wide, curious eyes.

No doubt intrigued by the abrupt change in his mother as she sensed Lyall needed a bit of a break.

She shot what she hoped was a kind, reassuring smile towards her son, trying to silently convey to Ted that he wasn't at all in trouble with her or her father, by any means.

"You want some more hot chocolate, Teddy Bear?" she murmured, stifling a light little giggle that threatened to escape her lips as the boy fought and failed to make a face and scrunch his little nose in annoyance at the nickname she had given her son ever since she was born.

"Yes, Mummy," he whispered in a quiet voice, still fidgeting on his grandfather's lap, though he made no motion to hop down from his comfortable looking spot.

Tonks saw Remus half rise from his spot at the end of the threadbare sofa, his lips parted open as if to speak, but he quickly relented and sat back down on the sofa the moment he saw his wife shake her head no, suddenly looking quite weary and at a loss for what to say to Lyall.

_Stay_ , she silently mouthed, pleading with Lupin with her eyes, hoping Remus took the hint.

The slightest incline of Lupin's head towards her quiet request signaled to the young witch and mother that he had understood her request and was honoring it.

Tonks turned on her bare heels, having kicked off her boots the moment they arrived inside Lyall's cottage, respectfully leaving her shoes by the front door mat, and carried the tray towards the kitchen, and was about to get everyone a refill on their tea and Teddy's hot cocoa, when the quiet susurration of her father-in-law's reserved voice called out to her, rendering her hovering in the doorway that separated Lyall's little kitchen from his living room.

His voice was so faint, that if Tonks hadn't already been in the process of hanging onto every word of Mr. Lupin's story of how he met Hope, she felt certain she would have missed it.

"She liked you, Mrs. Lupin. My Hope did, even if she never had a chance to say so in so many words," Lyall murmured thoughtfully.

Tonks froze, her grey eyes widening in shock and awe as she swallowed down past a lump in her throat.

Unable to help herself anymore, she slowly turned at the waist to look Mr. Lupin in the eyes.

"I…" Tonks stammered, the frog in her throat worsening as her throat hollowed and constricted.

But Merlin's Beard, she did not want to look into Lyall's light brown eyes that were so like her Remus's and see the hopelessness and despair and heartbreak within his irises.

Lyall Lupin would not say so in many words, but she could see it, Remus could see it, and, to a much lesser extent, Teddy could see just how much his poor grandfather was affected by the recent loss of his wife.

Tonks swallowed down hard as she struggled to find the right words to say, to think of something, anything at this point, that might put her father-in-law's mind at ease.

In the end, her heart answered for her, her lips saying the only thing that her tongue would allow them.

"Thank you, Mr. Lupin, sir," she answered politely. "That…means the world to hear you say that. Truly."

Shifting the teacups on the tray balanced in one hand to keep her hands busy, Tonks avoided looking up at Lyall for as long as the young witch possibly could, but finally, she could no longer face the inevitable, and so, she looked, lifting her chin up slightly to better meet his gaze.

Lyall just gazed at Tonks somewhat expectantly, in silence that had started a horrible, fatigued ringing in her eardrums, demanding for Nymphadora to say something.

"You're welcome, dear," he finally said at last with a heavy little sigh, before shifting his wooden rocking chair closer to the fire so both he and Teddy could benefit from the fire's warmth. "I think we'll take those refills now." Without so much as another word, he looked away.

It was more than enough for Tonks to garner his meaning. Lyall Lupin needed a moment to himself.

"Teddy Bear, why don't you come on and help me?" she encouraged lightly, offering her son a soft smile as her five-year-old's head whiplashed and turned sharply to the left to regard his mother. "I'll let you pick how many marshmallows you want. As many as you want, Teddy."

The wide, huge grin that cracked and split across her son's face would no doubt be worth her son's sugar high later.

Tonks smiled, in spite of the worry that wormed its way into her stomach as she looked once more at Lyall, not liking at all how tired and fatigued the man looked.

Remus quickly nodded his agreement, rising from his chair. "I'll come too, Dora," he murmured under his breath, sparing one last glance at his father's silhouette, the fire in the hearth casting shadows of light and darkness in their unyielding dance throughout the room.

Lupin pursed his lips into a thin line and did not speak to Dora again until the little family had made their way into Lyall Lupin's kitchen, where Tonks immediately got to work, tea for them, a fresh cup of hot chocolate for Teddy, (with her son's help!) refilling their beverages and taking the effort to pile on a small pile of cookies onto a plate so they'd all have something to nibble on while Lyall hopefully continued his tale in a moment.

"I…I don't know what to think about all this," Remus muttered after a moment as he stood at the kitchen sink, the sleeves of his white collared shirt underneath his sweater rolled up to his elbows as he absentmindedly checked and stirred the teabags of his own cup of tea.

Tonks felt a pang of pity tug at her heartstrings at the forlorn expression on her husband's face as he looked out the window at the encroaching thunderstorm approaching from the east, black and purple thunderclouds rolling in lazily and dangerous-looking.

She suspected the coming storm was an appropriate metaphor for Remus's heart at this point in time.

Tonks herself wasn't sure how she would react to learn that the night her parents met, that a savage _beast_ like Fenrir Greyback had taken a liking to Andromeda Tonks.

Coupled with the fact that Lyall had kept that information from his son, Tonks knew this had wounded him, quite possibly more than anything else Lyall could have done, save for…that day he'd insulted Greyback.

"At least he told you _now_ ," Tonks concluded with a forced smile that felt strained, causing the skin underneath her eyes to crinkle, and she knew the smile did not at all reach her eyes. "That has to count for something?"

She let out a tired sigh and moved towards Lupin, setting the freshly prepared tea in their respective mugs down on the kitchen table for a moment, sensing her husband needed her comfort now.

Resting a gentle hand on his right shoulder, she flinched, biting her lip in hesitation, but only because he did so the moment her hand came to rest down on his shoulder as she gave his shoulder a light little squeeze.

"I'm sorry that I only got to meet your mother a few times before she…before she passed away, Remus," Tonks whispered, her grey eyes turning saddened as she joined Lupin in his pensive, thoughtful staring out the window. "I think that if I could have gotten to know her more, I think that I would have really bonded with her. I would have loved her. She did her best to give you the best life that she possibly could. I don't think you need me to tell you that, Rem, do you?" she asked, craning her neck upward as Lupin shifted slightly, turning to the left and resting either of his hands on both of Tonks' shoulders.

His hardened expression softened as he looked at his wife, shooting her an odd-little half-smile, though in Tonks's mind as her brow furrowed in contemplative thought, it looked more like a pained grimace than anything else.

"You're angry that your father kept this part of the story from you," Tonks spoke out loud, as much to make herself try to understand Remus's shift in his mood in addition to wanting to get her facts right. "Aren't you?" she pressed him in what she hoped was a quiet, non-accusatory tone as his strained smile faltered and promptly slid off his face like Stinksap.

"Yes," he answered, sounding initially reluctant to voice his confession even to that of his own beloved wife, a light pink blush speckling along his cheeks as the proud pair of parents noticed Teddy out of the corner of their eyes dipping his hand into the bag of marshmallows and trying to fit as many as he could into his mouth.

Tonks swore she thought she saw Remus's eyes start to twinkle and the beginnings of a smile split across his features.

Tonks slowly nodded her head at Remus's confession.

"Well, you _are_ admitting it to me, and that's better than nothing, Remus," she concluded with a forced smile and a soft, nervous chuckle.

Considering what she knew of her father-in-law, which was, sadly, admitted very little, as Lyall was quite a private man and kept to himself more times often than not, she suspected the aging old wizard had his reasons for not divulging this part to Remus while his son had been growing up.

"How much of your father and mother's life story _do_ you know, Remus?" she asked, her curiosity burning just on the tip of her tongue.

Tonks couldn't be certain, but she swore her husband almost looked… _ashamed_.

Remus had sudden trouble making eye contact with her, and if it was at all possible, his cheeks flushed high with color, going from their usual pallid if not slightly peaky paleness, to light rosy pink.

"I…" he stammered nervously as he fidgeted with the gold wedding band that he wore proudly on his left ring finger. "N—not much," he finally said, at last, daring to meet his wife's gaze, and exhaled a relieved breath to see there was no hint of judgment in Dora's pale grey eyes. "Dad is a private man, Dora."

Remus released a breath he hadn't even been aware he was holding until he exhaled, feeling some of the tension in his shoulders melt away as he allowed himself to relax.

Sensing that Tonks was eager to learn more, he lowered his voice and stepped closer, so that Tonks was practically pressed firmly into his hard but lean chest.

He was much taller than she was, so Tonks had to crane her neck upward to better look Remus in the eyes.

Lupin looked down his nose at his wife, letting out a tired sigh and brushing the back of his finger along Dora's cheeks, staring deep into her pale grey eyes that had ensnared and bewitched him from the first day he'd laid eyes upon her in the Order of the Phoenix.

When Lupin caught her fall from tripping over that stupid troll leg umbrella stand back at Headquarters that Sirius adamantly refused to get rid of, saying it gave the hallway some true charm that was missing from the place.

"My father's ever really only told me bits of what happened the—the few nights before I was attacked," he muttered, pulling Tonks close so that his chin was resting on top of her hair. "But everything before that, how they met, Greyback encountering them the night he saved her from the boggart, is all brand new to me, sweetheart, but…"

His voice cracked and wavered slightly as it trailed off, and Tonks, still held firmly against his chest, felt Remus swallow down hard past a lump in his throat.

"It's all right, Rem," Tonks murmured, closing her eyes, and listening to the truly sweet sound of his heartbeat. "I _know_ you. You have to let yourself _feel_ it. It's all right. If you aren't comfortable with hearing the rest of his story tonight, it's more than okay for you to tell me, and we'll leave. We can come back another time and let him tell the rest. It's more than okay to say no. Just say the word, Remus."

"But why didn't he _tell_ me?" he demanded, sounding on the verge of a complete breakdown if Tonks couldn't think of something, and fast, to calm Remus down now.

"Because," Tonks answered slowly, pulling apart and stepping back slightly to better meet her husband's desperate, pleading gaze that caused a pang of pity to worm and nestle its way into the core of her heart, "I think that he suspected you would react…like _this_ ," she murmured, wildly gesticulating with her hands to try to make a point, breathing a sigh of relief as Lupin nodded, "But what do you say we go back and find out? _Together_ ," she whispered, lowering her voice so that only her husband could hear, smiling softly up at him as he nodded his agreement, before turning towards Teddy, who was cautiously optimistic in watching his parents by the kitchen table, still enjoying sneaking marshmallows.

"I _saw_ that, Teddy," Remus chuckled, much to his son's dawning horror as his father met Teddy's gaze the moment the boy's hand was halfway to his mouth with two more sticky marshmallows clutched in his hand, letting out a snort through his nose at his son's facial expression, though he did not seem at all angry by Teddy sneaking treats.

Instead, he strode over towards the table and ruffled his son's thick tuft of light brown hair that was so like that of his own that would need another trim soon.

"What do you say you help your mother carry this?" he added, picking up the tray with the tea mugs and cookies. "Be careful, try not to spill any on Grandpa's floor, Ted, and don't burn yourself, son," Remus cautiously advised, shooting him a smile that Teddy, somewhat nervously, returned.

Their son nodded, his cheerful smile slowly sliding off his face, replaced by a look of somber solemnity that almost made Tonks giggle in amusement at such a serious look on the otherwise quite jovial five-year-old boy.

This task was an important one. Carrying the scalding hot tea and cookies was a monumental task for Teddy, with the boy not wanting to spill a single drop or crumb.

It helped Teddy to forget that his Daddy was upset. Nervously lifting his gaze, only occasionally taking his eyes off the heavy plastic tray to watch where he was going as he cautiously approached the coffee table that rested in front of the couch so he could set the tray down, he swore Grandpa straightened in his rocking chair, and was looking at Teddy with equal parts amusement at the seriousness in which Teddy took his task, and wonder.

Mum and Dad trailed close behind him after a moment, holding hands and not speaking much.

Teddy set the tray down carefully before letting himself sigh in a rather overly dramatic fashion and plopping down in front of the rug in front of the fireplace, but not before taking his cup of freshly made piping hot chocolate and another handful of marshmallows he'd secretly slipped into his sweater pocket when Mum and Dad weren't looking.

Both his parents exchanged raised eyebrows with one another at their son's sneaky antics but said nothing, smiling at how he'd managed to get away with it.

Teddy was the first one to break the silence as Lupin waved his wand and Lyall's fresh mug of Chamomile tea went sailing gently through the air, towards his father.

"Did Grandma like Mr. Scamander, Grandpa?" he questioned eagerly, taking a sip of his hot chocolate and as a result, gracing his upper lip with a brand-new chocolate mustache that elicited a light chuckle from Lyall, though he made no immediate motion to grab a handkerchief or a napkin with which to wipe it off at first, finding the sight of his grandson enjoying his drink endearing.

It reminded him of Hope, how much she had loved pretty much all things chocolate when still alive.

_A trait that Remus definitely inherited from his mother_ , Lyall thought, feeling the pang of sadness well within his chest as the memories came flitting back again.

"Not at first, no, Teddy Bear," Lyall chuckled, a faraway glint of amusement forming in his hazel eyes. "There was a um, a bit of a _misunderstanding_ , shall we say, with your grandma's _purse_ at the time of all things…"

"Huh?" Teddy's little eyebrows shot so far up onto his forehead that they almost disappeared into his hairline.

He pursed his chocolate-mustached lips into a thin frown as he stared up at his grandfather in confusion.

If it had been silent in Lyall's cottage's living room before, now it was even more so if such a thing was possible.

Lyall chanced a glance over at his son and daughter-in-law and, much to his amusement, both of them had equal looks of stunned disbelief on their faces.

Remus had stiffened, his own bite of cookie halfway to his mouth, and Tonks's hands were wound tight around her mug of tea, an interesting look on her pale features.

Lyall arched his brows in a challenging sort of way as if looking towards Teddy's parents for confirmation to continue his story. When his son gave a curt little nod of his head by way of response, Lyall returned the gesture.

"Yes, Ted. Believe it or not, Newt Scamander didn't like your grandmother at first, because of her bag…to say my old friend overreacted at first is something of an understatement..."

* * *

**Tonks and Lupin are such good parents to little Teddy. Melts my heart lol.**

**Coming up in Ch. 11, the beast-loving Newt Scamander gets into a bit of a tiff with Hope over, you guessed it, her purse, which he thinks to be made of real dragonhide and as a consequence, does not take the best immediate liking towards the girl his young colleague saved in the Welsh woods...**


	11. Baggage of a Different Kind

**11**

**LYALL** regarded the now open door of Newt and Tina Scamander's spare bedroom with no small look of trepidation in his eyes as Newt stood hovering in the doorway, a dawning look of outrage and anger as he clutched Miss Howell's purse she'd dropped in the woods with no small measure of disgust and revulsion on his face.

He almost rolled his eyes at his behavior. He didn't know where Newt's ridiculous, and in his mind, the unfounded attitude was coming from, but if you were to ask Lyall, Lupin would say Newt's behavior was entirely uncalled for.

Lyall was not entirely sure he liked the growing look of annoyance and anger in Newt Scamander's eyes, especially considering how not even fifteen minutes ago, the famed Magizoologist had, at a minimum, be polite and quite cordial towards Miss Howell.

"This _is_ _yours_ , Miss Howell, is it not? We found your… _bag_ out in the Welsh forest a few feet away from where I found you lying unconscious," he murmured, no small hint of disgust laced throughout his quiet, slightly warbling tone in the man's old age.

The way he spat the word 'bag' made it sound as though a bitter poison had seeped its way up to his throat and settled upon his tone, and the look of disgust on the aging man's face was quite evident as he crinkled his nose and pulled a face.

"Y—yes, Mr. Scamander. I—it is," she stammered, her voice quite low and quiet. "Thank you for retrieving it for me, sir. I—I don't know what I'd have done if I'd lost it."

Hope blinked as Newt Scamander proceeded to step through the threshold of the spare bedroom's entryway and promptly crossed the hardwood floor and approached Hope's bedside in two quick strides with a surprisingly deft and nimbleness to his movements, which Hope, Lyall could tell by the look of bewilderment in her eyes, thought rather astonishing considering his age.

Clearly, she had expected Mr. Scamander's gait to be lame, and his joints wonky with arthritis or lumbago at his age of sixty-two, but that was quite obviously not the case with Mr. Newt Scamander.

The Magizoologist was quite spry for his age, and it was with little effort on his part that he pulled up the spare chair on the opposite side of her bed, the one that Lyall had previously been occupying, since having vacated it to perch himself on the edge of her bed's mattress, near the foot.

Newt folded his arms across his chest, plunking Hope Howell's black little faux leather crocodile skin shoulder bag onto the small wooden night table that was placed by her bed with a loud audible thump that made poor Hope flinch.

Hope blinked owlishly at her purse for a few long moments, before lifting her chin and nervously meeting her other savior's now-hardened gaze, not sure at all she liked the growing look of anger and annoyance in Newt's eyes.

Hope was so utterly confused, not to mention, outright terrified by Mr. Scamander's question he had just posed. Well, perhaps not by the question itself, yes, it was in fact, her bag, and she was more than grateful to whichever one of these men had thought of the good graces to pick it up.

Her little black shoulder bag was most precious to her. A gift from Janey for Christmas last year, it was one of her most prized possession. Not _real_ crocodile skin, of course, good heavens, _no_!

Hope would _never_ condone carrying a bag made of real crocodile skin, but you could hardly tell the difference with how well it was made, and considering it contained the keys to her flat, her wallet, and not to mention, a copy of the office keys, it was perhaps her most precious and prized possession in her life right about now.

If nothing else if for the fact that inside her bag, alongside her wallet, which everything within could easily be replaced, the one possession gifted to her by her parents before they'd died could not: her copy of one of her all-time favorite books, _The Hobbi_ t by J.R.R. Tolkien.

The little paperback copy of the treasured tale was just small enough to fit inside her bag, and Hope had taken to reading it during her lunch break whenever her coworkers were being particularly demanding and difficult on a given day. It gave her a good sense of escapism, to lose herself in the world of magic and adventure as she followed Bilbo Baggins and Thorin and company.

Janey always chastised her for losing herself in the fanciful touches of the story, but that was exactly what she _liked_ about stories like _The Hobbit_.

Hope had a tendency to carry the little book in her purse with her wherever she went, so she could have something to read in the event she needed a pick-me-up. She surely would have gone into a panic if she'd lost her purse, and as a consequence, her copy of the book, too, and she was grateful that one of these men had thought to pick it up and bring it back with them when they escorted her here back to Mr. Scamander's home to let her recover.

Though, for the life of her, Hope could not place the man's sudden shift in countenance, or why he was eyeballing her purse (and her, for that matter!) with such a look of disgust and distrust that she didn't know what to make of it, and Hope felt a stab of a fear prick at her heart.

His eyes widened slightly, and he continued to look in Hope's general direction, occasionally flitting back to her bag, as though her purse was riddled with some kind of _disease_ , and that Hope had…spat in his face or something.

Hope wasn't even going to comment on how much of a peculiar fellow he was.

Hope's dark chocolate eyes raked once over his outfit, and while there was nothing particularly unusual about it, it did seem old-fashioned, and there was a bit of a quirky air about the old man that she could not quite place or put her finger on, for the life of her, and it bothered Hope that she didn't know what to do.

Though before Hope could part open her lips to intervene, she could see Lupin stiffen from the edge of her bed, and he too was looking like he wanted to say something, a contemplative, thoughtful expression forming on his features, but he must have thought better of it, for he closed his mouth and merely glowered at the aging man.

Mr. Scamander pursed his lips into a thin line, keeping his arms folded across his slender chest, shrinking into the sweater vest that was slightly too big for him as much as he possibly could before speaking.

"What dragonhide is it made out of, Miss Howell? It is nothing like any kind that I've ever seen before? It's not Romanian, nor is it a Hungarian Horntail, so what species is it, then?" he questioned, looking towards Hope as she was propped up behind a mountain of pillows.

The old sixty-two-year-old was regarding Hope with furrowed, raised eyebrows and such a look of annoyance that Hope didn't know what to do. One quick glance out of the corner of her eye in Lupin's direction was more than enough for Hope to know she'd get no help from Lyall here.

"D— _dragonhide_?!" Hope whispered. She blinked owlishly at the aging old man, at his weathered features. Was this man _serious_? Did Mr. Scamander _really_ expect her to answer? How on God's green earth was she to do that?!

She could barely stop her hands from shaking, much less get her racing heart, now little more than a throbbing mass of corded muscle within the confines of its cage of bone and cartilage, to calm down even for five minutes at a time.

After a considerable night she'd suffered through, one which, Hope wasn't sure she would survive or not, her second savior was expecting her to open up and talk to him? And now, to make things even more awkward in her already precarious and rather unfavorable position she now found herself in, Mr. Newt Scamander was wanting to discuss the material her purse was made out of, thinking it was _dragonhide_?! Was the man perhaps short of a marble?

Was _that_ it?! Hope bit the wall of her cheek, nervously fidgeting with her fingers, constantly weaving the digits in between her white-boned knuckles, waiting with bated breath and gritted teeth. She had no idea what to say at all.

For that matter, Hope wasn't even sure what to do! Her mind felt as though it were reeling, and the front and sides of her temples were pounding, throbbing, causing a sheen of sweat to break out along her browbone and beads of perspiration to drip slick down the front of her temples.

Her heart was beating so fast in her chest, Hope was momentarily afraid the muscle would cease its rhythmic beating and just give out on her. And more to the point, was it possible that she could quite likely die from fright?

Those two men were still alive in the forest, or so Hope had been led to believe. Mr. Scamander and Mr. Lupin did not strike her as the type to kill those men, no matter how much of a brute they both had been towards her, then.

_What if they're still out there? They both saw my face, what if they manage to track me down again and find me_?

Her heart pounded even hard at that unpleasant thought. Hope swallowed down hard past a growing lump in her throat as she cast a nervous glance towards Lyall.

The handsome man who had saved her life tonight was looking visibly disappointed in his friend and colleague, as though he had expected better from Mr. Scamander, but neither did he try to jump to Hope's defense, which wounded Hope and cut her more deeply than anything else that could have happened to her tonight, which Hope thought rather strange, considering she'd known Mr. Lupin now for a few precious hours, at best.

It was rather strange, how quickly she seemed to be forming a liking to this man. Strange, yes, and new to her, but not necessarily unwanted, Hope was able to recognize her growing fondness for Lyall Lupin as what it truly was: pure affection. And to see him regarding Hope with a look akin to pity, it hurt her, for reasons that she could not explain.

"Lyall…?" she breathed, his name rolling off her tongue and sounded to her like smooth, melted butter. "Help me, what...what do you think I should say to calm him down, sir?" she pleaded, nervously casting her glance towards Mr. Scamander and then towards her purse, which Newt had unceremoniously plunked onto the bedside night table.

Judging by the look of annoyance and anger in the older wizard's eyes, the way he was currently looking at her bag, Hope believed it to be the man's designs to destroy it, to throw it into the lighted fireplace or something along those lines, and if that happened, Hope would be devastated.

To say that she had not expected any form of anger from either one of the men who'd saved her life tonight was a gross understatement, and Hope found she could barely contain her racing heart or her nearly frantic breaths. Mr. Scamander was angry with her… because of her _purse_?!

Oh, but none of this was making any _sense_. But the older man was angry, Hope could see that quite clearly as was as plain as the nose on her face. Mr. Scamander had not spoken yet to either Hope or Lyall of his anger, but he did not need to, for the disappointment was visible in his eyes.

She hoped she'd done nothing to offend Mr. Scamander, or his wife, Tina, who she had yet to meet, since regaining consciousness, but right now, as she dared to meet Newt's gaze, the elderly fellow's eyes were laced to the brim with what Hope could only describe as betrayal and utter anger.

Hope exhaled a slightly shaking breath, and by some miracle of God Himself, managed, at last, to find her voice.

"I—it's not… _dragonhide_ , sir, it's fake crocodile skin. I—it's not _real_ , Mr. Scamander, believe me, I—Earth doesn't have… _dragons_ , Mr. Scamander," she began, choosing her words cautiously and speaking slowly and carefully, as though she were speaking to a five-year-old child, rather than a fully grown adult male of sixty-two-years of age.

She let out a hiss of breath as she swore a muscle in the man's jaw tensed, and his posture straightened as he sat upright in his chair, the tension mounting in the room unmistakable. If the air in the room would have been a color visible to the human eye, the entire bedroom would have been scarlet at this very moment, Hope thought.

"You may find yourself _surprised_ , Miss Howell, in the days to come, should you continue to enjoy Mr. Lupin's company over here," Newt Scamander grumbled darkly to himself under his breath, still maintaining his grumpy disposition as he cast a distrusting look towards her bag. He looked back toward her with raised white eyebrows. "You're quite certain it's _fake_? You aren't lying to me? Please don't think of lying. I'll _know_ if you're _lying_ , dear."

Hope felt a cold chill of fear travel up and down her spine and she was unable to repress the shudder upon hearing Mr. Newt Scamander's strangely cold words.

She furrowed her brows into a frown as her mind struggled to process the old man's words. Newt had mentioned she might find herself… _surprised_. But _why_?

What on earth did it all mean? Were there…were there really dragons on earth? What on earth was she dealing with here? Social ineptitude for lack of social graces? Mild schizophrenia? Was Newt's colleague at his job _insane_?!

Hope nervously met Lyall's gaze as Lupin turned his head towards the old wizard seated in the wooden chair beside Hope's bedside, just a fraction of an inch, before a light pink blush speckled along his cheeks and the man looked back towards the floral wallpaper, at a spot just above Hope's head.

Lupin was very clearly embarrassed, though whether it was for himself or at the strange way the old man was behaving towards Hope, asking her ridiculous questions about the material of her purse and dragonhide, of all the _ridiculous_ things to discuss in conversation, she couldn't quite say, but possibly a combination of the latter.

"My…my bag is made out of fake leather, Mr. Scamander. N—no… _dragons_ …or—or any other animals were…were harmed when it was made, sir. At least, I _think_ so." She let out a soft, albeit nervous chuckle, hoping her statement would be enough to calm Mr. Scamander down from his state of what looked to be rapidly growing anger.

Hope expected Mr. Scamander to interrupt her, to yell at her, and refuse to let her speak, but Newt did no such thing. Maybe he was willing to listen to Hope's explanation, after all, and in return, Hope could ask a question or two of her own. Such as how it was that this man had come to believe that dragons, of all creatures, could possibly exist on earth?

There was no such thing as dragons, and even if there were, their sheer existence alone would be enough to send the entire world into chaos! Dragons were reputed to be monstrous _beasts_ , capable of destroying entire towns with a single breath of fire from their lungs, and they took no pity on humans.

At least, that's how it was with the dragon, Smaug, in her copy of _The Hobbit_ , which she hoped lay unscathed in her purse.

Hope breathed in a deep breath and continued. "A—are you an animal rights activist, sir? Is _that_ what all this is about, Mr. Scamander?" Her voice was very nearly shaking from fear, as she knew anything she said as it pertained to her bag's material might only anger the old man even more.

Newt Scamander inhaled but seemed to have sudden trouble meeting the young brunette woman's gaze. It was almost as if he were growing nervous or afraid to look at her. Perhaps he had a mild form of autism, she couldn't say.

"In a sense. I'm…quite fond of all types of creatures. Beasts, you might say. My wife Tina helps me run a menagerie of sorts, almost like a zoo. If you hold any interest, if you promise not to hurt my creatures and treat them with respect, I'd be delighted to show you," Mr. Scamander spoke to Hope in a voice that could almost be described as a lowly little growl. "It is _only_ because of Mr. Lupin's insistence that you are here in my home tonight, Miss Howell," he spoke up, lowering his voice and shooting her what she perceived to be a brief sympathetic look. "It is Lyall you should thank, _not_ me. I do not let just _anyone_ into our home, Miss Howell. If you say that you have a fondness for animals, then I will choose to take you at your word and believe you, but if you should happen to treat _any_ of my creatures with disrespect, then I must kindly ask you to leave my home and return from wherever you came."

Hope slowly nodded her head at the new information, swallowing a lump in her throat. "Th—that's good, Mr. Scamander. I love all sorts of animals, e—except for reptiles, I don't do well with lizards or frogs, sir, and I would love to see your zoo sometime if you'll have me," she managed to gasp out in little more than a breathy squeak.

Lyall, from his place at the edge of Hope's bed, laughed nervously, but Mr. Scamander sanguinely and slowly turned his head to look towards Mr. Lupin's direction.

"Old Newt here is something of an animal-lover, Hope. He meant no offense by asking after your bag, he takes any animal-made products quite seriously and refuses to use them, and even abhors it when his wife, Tina, uses them."

Here, Lyall hardened his gaze in response to his friend and colleague's sudden aggression towards Hope and shot him a truly withering look of anger, almost dagger eyes.

Hope could almost in her imagination picture the literal knives shooting a straight line from Lyall's eyes towards Mr. Scamander's face, and the mental image was somewhat amusing, though it did nothing to calm down the tension.

"Tina does _no_ such thing! She—she loves my creatures just as much as I do, Lyall, you _know_ that. She'd have not supported my menagerie otherwise," Scamander barked in a voice that suddenly sounded rather rough and coarse, in Hope's mind. He half-rose from his chair, and Hope winced.

_Oh, no_. Things were definitely _not_ looking good. Hope let out a muffled little whine, her fingers curling tightly into fists as they found purchase in a twist of the bedsheets as she bit her lip, her gaze darting from Lupin towards Mr. Scamander, as though watching a cricket match, wanting to know who would win this argument.

Lyall shot Hope a quizzical, somewhat worried glance out of the corner of his eye, wondering how she was taking the sudden rising tension and the unexpected turn their conversation had taken since she'd woken up and regained consciousness, before raising his voice and turning his attention back towards Newt, who'd risen from his chair and was now standing directly in front of Lupin, leaving Lyall with no other choice but to get up and face the man, to look him square in the eyes.

"He _picks_ on people who use products even remotely close to resembling something that looks like they might be made from various types of animals because Mr. Scamander apparently has nothing _better_ to do with his life," Lyall snorted, resisting the urge to roll his eyes at Newt.

Hope visibly winced, swearing she could see in Mr. Scamander's face how surprised the man truly looked. She knew his last cutting remark was supposed to have been taken as a joke meant to make fun of him, but Newt did not seem to be able to recognize that particular social cue.

"Oh, Lyall, please don't do this," she begged, and Lyall turned his gaze sharply to his immediate left to look at her.

He raised his eyebrows at her and she shook her head, mouthing "no" to Lyall in the hopes it would dissuade the man from starting an argument with someone he considered a dear friend, and all over her stupid purse.

She grimaced at Lupin's seemingly inability to tell a joke that did not seem to be somewhat rude or cutting in any way, and she wondered if the quirk came from his shyness.

"It's not worth it," Hope whispered. She nervously flitted her gaze towards her purse and before she could lose her newfound resolve, reached across for it, and held the little black bag closely to her chest, before unzipping the bag's main compartment and digging into it for her book.

Newt and Lyall both turned their heads in an almost slow, methodical manner, equal looks of stunned disbelief on their faces as Hope rested a little paperback book on her lap with a dark forest green cover and bright gold letters, and all the while she held out her bag for Newt to take.

"H—here," she stammered in a half-choking voice. "I—if it will stop you two from fighting, a—and if it really means that much to you, Mr. Scamander, you can just _take_ it, sir."

Newt and Lyall did not immediately speak to her, merely proceeding to look at her with raised eyebrows and looks of alarm etching their way onto their faces suddenly.

"I…I…" Hope felt her breaths catch in her throat as she continued to hold out her purse, almost wanting Mr. Scamander to take it from her, do whatever he wanted with her purse if it meant it would get him to leave Lupin _alone_.

The old man could throw it into the fireplace for all she cared, but she did not appreciate or approve how Mr. Scamander was turning the worst of his annoyance on Lyall, when the only thing Lupin had done tonight was save her life, not once, but _twice_ , and she did not want him getting in trouble with his friend and a colleague or starting a rift that would cause a wedge over something so mundane and trivial as what material her purse was made out of.

"Take…it…" she pleaded. Hope wasn't sure if she was trying to speak at all or instead, making a noise in the back of her parched throat that sounded rather like a dying fish.

The shaking of her limbs was becoming even more pronounced now, due to the mounting tensions between her two saviors of the night, Hope could feel it travel from her hands, all the way up and down her arms, to her feet.

Panic was beginning to claw at her throat, growing tighter and tighter, constricting her throat as it hollowed, rendering poor Hope feeling like she was unable to breathe.

With two strange blokes cornering her in those unfamiliar woods that she had assumed would have been nothing more than an innocent walk in the woods and both men trying to attack her, coupled with this strange overwhelming fear that Hope could not quite place that something, whatever it was, felt strangely…well, _amiss_ , for lack of a better word.

And now, this white-haired chap, this Mr. Newt Scamander, an animal rights activist of sorts, was demanding her to tell her the material of her purse and wanting more information on what kind of woman she was, just how attached to various animals that she was.

He was more or less demanding answers of her that Hope wasn't quite sure she could give at the moment, considering her throat had hollowed to the point where she didn't think she could force air into her lungs at all now.

It felt as if all the air had been forcefully sucked from her. Her eyes began to dart across the bedroom again. It happened so fast, poor Hope wasn't sure _how_ it happened.

What Hope was searching the room for, she didn't know. Perhaps a sign that another man with devious intentions would pop out from behind one of the corners?

Hope remembered vaguely that she had previously thought of herself as something of a ticking time bomb, ready to go off without any kind of warning on her part.

Well, it appeared her fuse had reached its limit, and without any warning whatsoever to either Newt or Lyall, Hope, from her place in the bed, still propped up against her mountain of pillows, let out a truly agonized scream and flung herself onto her stomach, burying her head in her eyes, surrounded by men who were likely going to leave her to fend for herself for the rest of the weekend, injured, terrified, and alone, considering the strife she had caused, and despite all else, promptly burst into hard, wracking sobs.

Lyall's temper bristled as he heard Mr. Scamander grumble something unintelligibly under his breath from in front, though before Lyall could open his mouth to retort, a new voice spoke up, shattering the uneasy tension in the room.

"I do believe that is _quite_ enough, Newt Scamander."

Lyall jerked his head away from his challenger in search of the speaker. There, standing in the open doorway out in the hallway on the threshold that separated the hallway of the Scamander's simple little cottage from their spare room, stood the petite, but still a nevertheless somewhat imposing figure of the famed Magizoologist's wife.

Lyall swallowed thickly past the lump in his throat as he cast a nervous, apprehensive gaze towards Newt, who was suddenly looking uncomfortable, though Lupin did not dare avert his gaze from the witch standing in the door.

Lupin nervously lifted his gaze and forced his kind hazel eyes to rest on the young woman's dark brown eyes, flinching as he shot the new arrival a furtive, guilty look.

For the first time tonight since their unannounced arrival, Lyall found himself looking into the eyes of Newt's wife, Tina Scamander. And he was quick to decide he did not like it, judging by the look of pure outrage in her eyes.

Lyall knew he and Newt were about to in a very serious spot of trouble, and there was nothing he could do to stop it from happening.

* * *

**Yay, Tina putting a stop to it before tensions could mount even further! I always got it into my mind while re-watching the two Fantastic Beasts movies that Newt Scamander would probably have been an animal rights activist of sorts and that he would go out of his way to avoid using products made from animals, and thought it would be amusing at first for him to try to confront Hope over her purse. What a way to start off a friendship, though!**

**Coming up in Ch. 12, Tina attempts to de-escalate the situation, and Lyall and Newt attempt to go back to the Welsh forest in search of Greyback, meanwhile Lupin is forced to confess prematurely before he is anywhere close to ready to Hope that he is a wizard, but how will Hope react?  
**


	12. He's a Wizard

**12**

**HOPE** looked towards the new speaker, her curiosity getting the better of her at the sound of a new voice, this one female, renting the otherwise silent atmosphere of the room.

_This must be Mr. Scamander's wife_ , she thought, sniffling once or twice as she blearily lifted her head from the pillow and adjusted her position so her back was once more propped up against the pillows, allowing her to get her first good look at the woman who'd married old Newt.

Tina Scamander was not overly old, seemingly close to her husband's age, at perhaps around sixty-one or so, but her body had aged passed her years so much that she now wore the wizened features of an old crone, like a swamp witch or something in the fairy tales Hope had always envisioned in her mind when her parents would tell her fables at bedtime when she was just a little girl back then.

The occasional strand of flecks of grey could still be seen through the dark brown mane that framed her aging face, her hair cut short into a blunt, if not somewhat severe-looking bob, the ends of her hair just grazing past her chin. Her forehead was wrinkled by many peaks and trenches—caused by many years of persistent scowling.

_Probably due to Scamander's antics_ , Hope thought bitterly, though she instantly regretted thinking such a mean thought and suddenly felt guilty as a horrible wave of abrupt bitterness settled into the pit of her suddenly nauseous and churning stomach, though she shoved aside the unhelpful thought and continued her initial first impression of the aging woman's appearance.

Her forehead unflatteringly crowned eyes that were currently harboring somewhat of a disdainful glare as Mrs. Scamander looked towards her husband disapprovingly, shadowing their uniquely beautiful shade of dark brown.

Her entire face currently seemed drained of any signs of joy and amusement, instead, her cheeks told a tale of displeasure, though Hope supposed the woman now standing in the doorway could chalk it up to old Newt.

Tina Scamander, ignoring the thoroughly startled forms of her husband and Lyall, let her gaze rake over the room and when her dark, heavily-lidded eyes immediately settled on the bed and caught sight of the young Muggle woman's distressed state of mind that was sure to exacerbate her physical injuries she'd sustained earlier while in the woods, Mrs. Scamander immediately took it on herself to act.

Gingerly stepping through the door and carefully squeezing past Newt, whose mouth was open, and her husband was looking like he had something to say on Tina's sudden intrusion in what was sure to be a delicate matter, she strode into the bedroom and to the young woman's side almost instantly, choosing to ignore Newt's pointed stare.

"Close your mouth, Newt, you look like a garden gnome whenever you do that, the look does not become you at all, love, and you know that," Tina snapped abruptly in a voice that did not sound like her at all, rather cold and harsh.

Her back was turned towards her husband and as was such, Tina Scamander did not see Newt obediently follow his wife's suggestion, and in addition to that, she missed the truly withering look he shot his beloved wife for her quip.

Mrs. Scamander silently bristled in annoyance the moment she heard Newt murmur something under his breath about "…garden gnomes being beneficial."

Tina found it a bit difficult not to roll her eyes at his words.

Tina initially hesitated, carefully sitting down at the edge of the young woman's mattress. She hesitated to touch this Muggle woman, afraid she would startle her even worse than she already was and ultimately cause a reaction that could ultimately injure herself or the others standing in the room.

And yet, Mrs. Scamander thought it was highly inappropriate to just…sit here and do _nothing_ for the girl.

The poor thing had been through enough trauma in one night as it was, if what the brief explanation Lyall had been able to give Tina earlier was any indication of the truth.

"No one will hurt you, Miss Howell," Tina did her best to reassure the pretty brunette Muggle woman now perched atop a mountain of pillows in their spare queen bed. "It's quite all right. My husband tends to overreact when it comes to his precious animals, dear," she said softly.

Tina peeked over her shoulder and sent the bedroom a truly scolding and admonishing expression devoid of her typical warmth and kindness, the shadow of the Auror Mrs. Scamander had been once during her prime years flitting across her features as if daring Newt or Lyall to disagree with her.

The two wizards exchanged incredulous glances with one another and furrowed their eyebrows in disbelief. Both men, it seemed to Tina, were too wary by the situation to approach and could only stare at Miss Howell. They looked entirely too shocked to even consider the implications of how they had just greatly upset the girl.

Tina noticed Lyall give her a curt incline of his head, merely motioning to the older witch to continue the soothing gestures and speaking words of comfort to Miss Howell in the hopes of calming the young woman down.

While Newt, Tina observed silently with just the briefest hints of disdain, but Merlin blesses her husband, even with his lack of social graces in these types of situations, was merely looking more intrigued than angry.

Newt was peering over Lyall's slender shoulder for a better glimpse, having to almost stand on his tiptoes in order to do it, considering how much taller Lupin was.

Lyall, finally noticing his colleague's less than polite behavior, swiveled his head so sharply back around to regard Newt that Tina's husband had to stagger backward, letting out a muffled yelp of surprise in the process of doing so, to avoid both their heads connecting painfully.

Newt shot Lyall a furtive, almost guilty look with his eyes, silently trying to apologize for the conspicuous behavior. Newt turned his attention toward Tina and cautioned his wife with a gesture of concern intermingled with that of slight encouragement to calm the girl down.

Lupin took a cautious half-step towards the edge of the bed and resumed his seated position near the end of the mattress, curiosity clear in his kind, light hazel eyes. Yet, the wizard seemed content to watch for the time being, which Tina supposed she could appreciate.

Though Tina recognized that Lupin had somehow taken a shine to this Muggle, it was still a delicate situation that required the utmost handling with care, and a rather tender touch.

Nodding at her husband and Lyall Lupin for the silent concern and encouragement, Tina exhaled a slightly shaking breath before she turned back to the emotional young Muggle woman, a strained smile on her pale features.

"See, Miss Howell?" Tina encouraged, keeping her voice non-judgmental and soothing, speaking in soft, careful tones. "My husband means you no harm, dear. We just want to _talk_ to you is all. Find out more about you if we can."

Almost the moment the words tumbled out of Tina's mouth, she regretted it, wishing there was an easier way to approach such a delicate subject as she wracked her brain for ways to break the news to the distraught young Muggle that magic was in fact, real, and everyone within this room save for her possessed magical abilities.

Judging by the way she had reacted just now to whatever Newt had managed to spout out of his mouth that had upset her greatly, Tina sincerely doubted she would take the news well that both of her saviors in the woods tonight happened to be wizards.

Tina inhaled a sharp breath of cool air and held it. For several moments, the young Muggle now resting in their bed, who had by this point, curled in over herself with her knees drawn up to her chest, did not respond to her at all.

She swore she heard the younger woman sniffle once or twice as slowly, her muffled sobs began to fade, and the girl's bony shoulders eventually ceased their trembling. Mrs. Scamander stiffened as she heard the young Muggle inhale a careful, yet slightly shuddering breath before removing her head from being buried in both of her hands.

Again, the pretty brunette that Lyall Lupin seemed to have taken a remarkably quick fancy to, which was a relatively new development in the painfully shy wizard's life that Tina still demanded copious details of, perhaps later over a glass of the red elvish-made wine she'd been saving for a special occasion, if Lupin felt up to it, took another deep and somewhat unsteady breath to calm herself, but instead of tentatively lifting her head to meet Tina's gaze so she could speak to her as Tina imagined, her head of dark chocolate hair came up so fast that elicited a startled cry of surprise from Tina, with Newt's wife having to lean backward from her spot on the mattress's ledge in order to avoid a nasty collision with her head.

" _Talk_?" The brunette whispered in a dangerously soft and quiet voice, just a hint of anger laced throughout her sweet, shy-sounding voice, quiet rage coloring her tone.

Her voice was just barely above a whisper, but Tina swore she could see the anger radiating from the woman's slender shoulders as they once more resumed their shaking, though this time, not from sobbing out of fear, but anger.

The tension in the atmosphere was quite thick at this point, and Tina felt like it was pressing down, suffocating.

" _Talk_?" the woman pressed forward, hissing her words through gritted teeth, and Tina's first thought, and perhaps an inappropriate one, was perhaps this Muggle girl if she did possess any hidden magical abilities, would have made a great Parseltongue, considering her words were hissed, spat like poisonous venom more than spoken, but Mrs. Scamander had no time to reflect on this strange thought as the young woman continued her growing tirade of rancor.

" _Talk_? If talking is all you want of me, then why did _he_ ," she growled, the soft undertones of her voice gradually rising as she wildly waved an arm towards Newt, who immediately stiffened and reacted at being addressed in such an uncouth way, "make me feel as though I was being _interrogated_? And all over my _bag_?! I—I haven't done anything _wrong_ , so why is he hounding me like I'm some sort of criminal, Mrs. Scamander? Is your husband that much of an animal rights activist, miss, that he can't tell what faux crocodile leather looks like?!"

She did not exactly shout at the elderly witch, but nor was she pleased, either.

"A—and _dragonhide_? As in the _actual_ hide from a _dragon_? Is _everyone_ in this house out of their _minds_?! What is going _on_ , Mr. Lupin? What _aren't_ you telling me?!" Hope cried, hating hearing the unmistakable warbling note in the susurrations of her shy and timid voice, blinking back a fresh onset of salty, briny liquid. She looked and felt sure that slick tears would slip from her lids at any given moment if she couldn't manage to control herself. Tina felt a pang of pity prick at her heart.

Howell's plea was desperate, and the young brunette flinched upon hearing the faltering crack and dip in her tone as she looked towards Lupin for any confirmation.

Though before Lyall could open his mouth to speak, to offer what little words of comfort that he could, there came a knock at the door.

Hope felt her cheeks turn hot and her stomach give a flutter as her head whiplashed towards the door, wondering who on God's green earth could be standing just outside the door now if it was another person who seemed to be quite touched in the head and insane.

The first knock was followed up quickly with another in short succession. Fast, rapid knocks on the other side of the door with their knuckles, insistent, and sounding urging.

Whoever stood on the other side of the closed bedroom door was in the middle of mid-knock, their third round of wraps on the heavy door, when, and this part, Hope swore she imagined it, swearing her eyes were deceiving her, but the young woman could have sworn the door somehow magically swung open of its own accord, for it flung open and flew backward so hard it rattled against its rusted hinges, though neither Mr. nor Mrs. Scamander nor Lyall had so much as made a motion to open the door.

Tina exhaled a shaking breath of relief through her flaring nostrils at the somewhat heavyset, dark-haired man that now stood in the doorway, looking at the scene unfolding before him as tension met him upon stepping over the threshold of the hallway and further into their spare bedroom, the edges of his lightly-grown dark mustache prompting without twitching.

Hope stared, blinking owlishly at the new arrival, who was looking more than a little awkward as his eyes made a quick scan of the room before settling on her.

"This her?" he questioned in a somewhat gruff, deep voice, his gaze fixated solely on Newt Scamander, Hope noticed. It also did not escape her intuitive nature that the man's lilt of his voice carried a slight New York accent.

_If that's the case, he's a long way from home if that's where he lives_. Hope swallowed thickly past the swelling lump in her throat, a muted whimper escaping her lips.

Though this somewhat pudgy-looking man seemed kind enough upon the first appearance, Hope had learned the hard way tonight, not once, but twice, that appearances could be deceiving, and she felt her fingers twist into fists as she clutched at the edges of her bedsheet and afghan draped over her lap as the man shrugged out of his trench coat and proceeded to greet all three of them like an old friend, moving towards Newt Scamander first for a tight embrace.

Hope could not explain the sudden swell of uneasiness that had wormed its way into the pit of her churning belly, but anyone who could put up with Mr. Scamander's' antics and, in her mind, severe animal rights activist behaviors, seemed all right in her book, but still, her rationale did nothing to quell the hint of dread as the man pulled up a chair and proceeded to look at Hope rather interestedly.

The man's dark eyes glanced over only once towards Newt and Lyall, both men having relaxed a little in their stances upon this new man's arrival, Hope suspiciously noted, which only made her feeling of general uneasiness well within her chest.

"I got your… _message_ , Newt. Queenie sent me here as quickly as she could. Uh, Newt?" the man questioned, sounding cautious as he continued to keep his gaze fixated on Hope, his gaze unabashed and unwavering.

It unnerved Hope to no end, though she had no time to ponder it as Mr. Scamander spoke up, only seeming to relax the moment his wife removed herself from her perch at the edge of Miss Howell's bed and moved to stand alongside him, resting a gentle, reassuring hand on his left shoulder.

This new stranger shot Newt a quizzical look with furrowed eyebrows. Newt, sensing what the man was about to ask, gave a curt shake of his head no, and shot a rather pointed look towards Lyall, who immediately stiffened.

"She doesn't know yet, Jacob," Newt murmured in a quiet, somber voice that had lost all traces of its previously hardened edges, which signaled to Hope and everyone else in the room that the worst of his anger towards Hope was over, though Hope silently bristled as the older man turned his back on Hope and this new arrival named Jacob, though not before peeking over his shoulder and casting one last truly scathing look towards Hope's purse on the nightstand that immediately set Hope's blood on fire. "Keep it, Miss Howell," Newt said, at last, his voice sounding pained, though he adamantly refused to meet Hope's piercing stare.

"Y—you don't want it?" Hope stammered, looking towards Lyall, who shot her an encouraging smile that she did not return, and Hope swore he looked hurt and almost offended a little bit when he didn't, but she paid it no mind. There were other more important things on her mind right now than worrying about returning his smile with one of her own, such as _someone_ —hopefully Lyall, and perhaps this new bloke, Jacob—telling her the honest truth.

Newt Scamander gave a slight shake of her head no that Hope almost missed, and likely would have, had she not already been hanging onto the elderly wizard's every move.

"No, it's yours. I…apologize for the way I reacted earlier," he answered simply, speaking as though the words were causing him great pain just to utter his simple apology, still not meeting her gaze and refusing to do so.

The only person present in the room whom he _did_ seem comfortable enough to lift his gaze and lock eyes with was Lyall, Hope noticed, as he revolved at the waist.

"When the three of you are done talking," Mr. Scamander muttered, lowering his voice an octave as a flicker of something unreadable darted across his features, "I'd like to speak to you, Mr. Lupin. If you are agreeable to it, I'd like to return to that Welsh forest in search of _him_ ," he said, his words cautious.

Hope inhaled sharply and sat up straighter against her mountain of pillows, feeling her almond-shaped dark brown eyes widen in shock at fear. Mr. Scamander's tone brought concern to her gaze, and she was sure the look of shock was evident upon her bruised features as she gaped.

Lyall offered the slightest incline of his head, silently signaling his agreement with his work colleague's plan, though not before turning to look towards Hope, a solemn and grim expression snaking its way to his handsome face.

Without waiting for her permission to approach her side, thinking it unwarranted at this point, given everything that had happened to her so far tonight, not seeing Newt and Tina silently trickling their way out of the room, dispersing until only Hope, Jacob, and Lyall remained in the bedroom, Lyall strode towards Hope's side and stared deep into her eyes for what felt to Hope like several long, excruciating moments as the tension between the two, the words left unspoken that Lyall seemed to be having difficulty saying, remained.

He reached down, having to bend slightly in order to do it, to brush back a stray strand of dark chocolate hair that had fallen across Hope's ashen face.

Then suddenly, Lyall could not bear to look at the shining adoration intermingled with a truly desperate and pleading look as the man held Hope's gaze. Lyall righted himself, turning to stare briefly at the new arrival, Jacob, before fixing his gaze at a piece of peeling floral wallpaper just behind Hope's head a few centimeters above.

"I have to go back to the woods, Miss Howell."

His voice was faint, and very nearly a whisper, sounding hushed and rather ashamed, as though Lupin had just confessed a dirty secret, and he was looking rather embarrassed, hurt, and upset, which made two of them.

Hope felt her face rapidly drain of color as her heart dropped to the bottom of her stomach and her lips went dry. She licked her lips to moisten them, but no moisture came, only a further feeling of dryness and chapped lips.

She swallowed back the acidic bile that was seeping its way unbidden up into her throat, hoping she'd not vomit.

"You're…you're going _back_?" Hope repeated slowly, unsure of what she had said, and even more unsure that she had heard Lupin's words correctly. "Back to the…woods."

Lyall dropped his chin remorsefully, unsure of what else to say to her. He swore he could almost hear Miss Howell's fragile heartbreak and the vestiges of her patience snap. He nodded slowly and sorrowfully.

"Back to those _men_."

It was not even a question as it left Hope's lips. She voiced her suspicion as if she were certain. Lyall nodded, not bothering to bring up the fact that the first 'man' Miss Howell had actually encountered was, in fact, a boggart.

That was a conversation best saved for another time hopefully in the future, presuming his confession at what he was about to tell her didn't scare her off. He hoped not.

Lupin twisted his entire body to face Hope's, desperate to make the young woman understand why he had to leave.

"I am _not_ _abandoning_ you, Miss Howell," he corrected, sensing the worry that was wrought all over her pale face, "I'm going back to ensure those men can't harm you or anyone else ever again. Mr. Scamander will be with me, we will be safe, but…" Here, he hesitated, looking towards Jacob, almost as if for confirmation. "This is Jacob Kowalski, a family friend of Newt and his wife. Jacob here is married to Tina's sister, Queenie, Hope. He's quite nice, and will keep you company until Newt and I return," Lyall quickly explained, hoping that a friendly face would provide at least a small modicum of comfort to the distraught and confused beautiful young Muggle.

The overweight man offered a nod but no verbal response. Lyall emanated a tense breath through his nose and closed his eyes, steeling his nerves for her reaction, already able to sense it wasn't apt to be pleasant.

Though before he could confess what was perhaps in this moment his deepest, darkest secret, Hope spoke up, effectively pulling Lupin from his dark, swirling thoughts.

" _Why_?" Hope shook her head, trying to send Lyall's words away, swallowing past a lump in her throat. "You _promised_ me that you wouldn't leave me alone here. That I would be _safe_ here!" she begged, close to tears.

"You will," Lyall did his best to reassure Hope of that fact, though his words seemed to have no effect on the distraught young woman, who merely raised her eyebrows in Lyall's direction and blinked back a fresh wave of tears that threatened to escape her eyelids if she couldn't manage to maintain control over her raging emotions in her overwhelmed mind.

"Y—you _cannot_ leave me _alone_ with these people, Mr. Lupin. They—they seem kind enough, b—but… _dragons_? _Wizards_? _Galleons_? I...I don't even know what that is! I _heard_ you talking with Mr. Scamander outside my—my door when I woke up," Hope whispered.

Now it was _her_ turn to look embarrassed as a light pink blush speckled on her cheeks as she took in the sight of Lupin's rapidly paling face as he realized she'd been listening in.

"How much of that did you overhear, Hope?" he questioned gently, glancing down at his hands, and quickly realizing that Hope's fingers were still clasped tightly in his own, and the young woman showed no signs of relinquishing her grip.

Instead of shrugging out of the young Muggle's vice grip, Lupin held firmly to her pale and perfect hands, hoping to make Hope understand that it was for her own safety that he was choosing to return with Newt, to try to find him.

"I heard enough to know that I don't understand what's going on," Hope implored, her rich chocolate eyes pleading with his, desperately searching Lyall's eyes for the truth. "I…" She bit down on her bottom lip, looking away for a moment to compose herself before swiveling her head back to the front to fully meet Lyall's questioning, hopeless gaze.

It seemed to take Hope an eternity to find her voice again, and when she did speak, her voice was practically shaking.

"I like you, Mr. Lupin," she announced boldly, not caring if this Jacob character overheard any of what she was about to say that she believed were meant for Lyall and him alone. "I would like to continue talking with you and getting to know you better, if…if that's something you want."

Her voice trailed off and she fell silent, waiting for Lyall to respond, and she bit her bottom lip in hesitation.

Lupin, for his part, answered without any hint of unease or hesitation on his part, which sent a spiraling feeling of warmth through Hope's veins and bloodstream at hearing his answer.

"I—I do," Lyall stammered, feeling a sheen of cold perspiration start to break out along his forehead as beads of sweat steadily dripped down the front of his temples. Hope nodded, a surge of fiery determination suddenly present in her dark brown eyes that had not been there a second ago, and she sat up straighter and looked at him.

"Then if you want that, if you want me in your life, then please…be _honest_ with me. _Please_ ," Hope implored in a soft voice, her almond-shaped dark brown eyes brimming with the beginnings of a fresh bought of tears that she fought against, shrugging one of her hands out of Lupin's grasp to flick away at a single tear that had escaped her left eyelid.

She knew what she was asking of Lyall had to be a lot for him, but no matter what words came out of his mouth, she'd not run from him, or turn the man away, no matter what happened. She simply could not. Hope knew she wanted to know this man, and to help him in any way she could, even if it was simply offering the man company.

He hesitantly bit his lip and looked towards the Scamander's family friend, Jacob, for confirmation.

" _Tell_ her, Lupin," Jacob offered in a somber voice. "I think it would be best if you just got it out in the open."

The man's friendly smile and kind dark eyes seemed to calm down whatever nerves were waging war within his system slightly, Hope noticed somewhat affectionately.

She'd have to make a mental note to thank this Jacob character later if Hope got a moment alone with Mr. Kowalski.

Lyall visibly winced, his gaze wandering over Hope's face once more as he reluctantly tore his eyes from Jacob's sympathetically smiling face. He desperately searched Hope's face for any sign of fear or hesitation, but he found none within the young Muggle woman's eyes to behold.

The last phrase the cautious young brunette had just uttered to him was still swimming through his tormented mind, and it was the use of the word 'please' that caused Lyall to feel the sudden shift within himself and tell her.

"Well, I—it is…difficult for me to explain, Miss Howell," Lupin trailed for a moment, unsure of how best to phrase his confession, for he'd hardly ever had this type of interaction with a young woman before, much less a Muggle who had no knowledge whatsoever that magic existed in parallel and in tandem to that of her own world.

Merlin's Beard, but his heart was racing as he looked at her. Her brilliant dark eyes like that of smooth chocolate sparkled in the light of the dimly lit candles which had been placed precariously by her bedside table, and another couple on the dresser, a few more on the only windowsill in the room, though the soft orange and red light gave her skin a faint amber glow that made Hope Howell look…truly _gorgeous_. He felt his tongue caught in his throat.

Sensing his nervousness, Hope's expression changed only slightly. She straightened her back and leaned forward, folding her hands tighter as her shaking hands found purchase in a twist of the surprisingly soft cotton sheets.

Hope was sure she looked a little shocked at the man's sudden display of nervousness and this Jacob fellow's strange sympathetic glances he continuously cast towards her, a look of apprehension on his pinked cheeks, almost as if he expected a volatile reaction of Hope once Lyall confessed the truth to her of whatever was going on.

"I…" Lyall's voice cracked and wavered as he nervously lifted his chin to better look Hope Howell in the eyes.

Lupin exhaled a shaking breath through his nose, steeling himself for the young woman whose life he had saved twice tonight to have an adverse reaction to the confession he was about to make to her.

But if not now, then _when_? Newt was right. She was going to have to learn the truth at some point, and she had so calmly and coolly asked him for the honest truth. No secrets or barriers between the two of them if he were to continue to call on her, and Lyall knew that he had to tell Hope the truth.

"I…I'm a wizard," he confessed, his voice small and his words so faint, that at first as Hope leaned forward, straining to hear the soft-spoken man's words, she thought at first Lupin hadn't spoken at all, that he'd trailed off.

Hope felt a cold chill of unbridled fear waft through her veins, as something within Hope clinked that very second.

She felt her almond-shaped dark brown eyes widen in shock and awe as her head collapsed back against the pillow.

_Wizards_? Had she heard Mr. Lupin correctly? Were those strange chaps she met in the woods, the ones so much taller than her, wizards? Was that how they had been able to appear in front of her in the dark forest, almost silent as a phantom without any indication of where they'd come from? Were they… _wizards_?! And what about Mr. Scamander? He had seemingly appeared to rescue her from that second brute almost out of midair, as if by… _magic_.

And then there was that moment earlier when Jacob had entered the room, how the door had flown open, seemingly of its own accord without Mr. or Mrs. Scamander or Lyall stepping forward to open the door.

And Lyall, oh, _Lyall_! He had appeared out of nowhere when he'd saved her from the first stranger in the woods, darting through the trees, quick as lightning, moving so fast the man was almost a blur, and she'd not seen him until Mr. Lupin had been standing right in front of her.

"Miss Howell?" Lyall's voice reached her eardrums, sounding wrought with worry. " _Say_ something," he pleaded.

But she couldn't hear him. Hope let out a pained whimper as she shrank back against her pillows in fear.

_Oh, no. This…this is NOT happening. I—I can't be having a conversation with an actual, honest-to-God wizard_! _I am NOT currently sitting in a house filled with—with magical artifacts that I can't even recognize! And they were talking about dragons! Oh, are dragons even real?!_

The cup of soup she'd been holding clutched tightly in both hands slipped from her hands and clattered to the floor with a loud, resounding _clang_ , though before the mug could shatter into a thousand pieces and spill its truly delicious contents all over the floor, Lyall pulled a thin-looking dark brown stick that looked to be made of the wood from an oak tree from an interior pocket of his tattered brown old jacket and gave it a sharp wave with a well-practiced flick of his wrist and the cup immediately soared through the air and landed with a gentle thump back in its original resting place on top of the night table.

Hope merely stared blankly at the man who'd saved her life tonight, not wanting to believe Lyall could be a wizard. That she, quite possibly, was about to have a life-changing experience if and when her mind could accept it.

But for now, it seemed to be putting up quite a struggle.

"I…I'm _not_ , h— _how_ ….?" She murmured to herself, hardly daring to blink her lids, for fear if she did, all of this in front of her, Lyall included, would disappear from her life.

"Miss Howell? Are you feeling sick? You've gone pale," Jacob pointed out from where he sat perched in the corner.

She could hear Lyall murmuring something to Jacob by way of response, but the words weren't registering in her mind. "This—this is a dream, Lupin, right? I'm dreaming, aren't I?" she questioned desperately, biting her lip as she looked towards Lyall and then to Jacob for their answers.

Jacob made an odd little snorting noise at the back of his throat and rolled his eyes good-naturedly at her query.

"Believe me, lady, I ain't got the brains to make this up."

"But _how_?!" Hope exclaimed desperately, leaning forward, and gesturing wildly about the room. "Th—this isn't possible, none of this is real! Magic can't exist, o—otherwise we—we would have known about it, right?"

Hope, more than anything, wanted a _real_ answer, and things in her mind were not adding up at all right now.

If this was a dream, if she'd hit her head when she'd fallen, then that meant…she was still in the woods, yes? If this was a dream, she shouldn't be able to feel it? Right? Wasn't that one of the standard rules with vivid dreams?

"Stop this, Lyall, and tell me the _truth_! Wh—what are you? What was that? I—if you _are_ a wizard, then why on earth didn't you take care of those men when you had a chance?! They—they _hurt_ me, they would have _killed_ me!"

"Hope, that's enough! I _told_ you the truth! I am a wizard, Miss Howell, like it or not, and that _isn't_ about to change," Lyall exclaimed, looking like his own temper was swelling. Though he sounded more hurt than angry with her, the look in his glistening, shimmering eyes laced to the brim with antagonizing hurt at the nature of Hope's reaction.

As he took a cautious half-step towards Hope's bed, his light hazel eyes had darkened considerably, flashing dangerously and strange fire of sorts danced behind the handsome bloke's orbs.

Several of the candles that had been lighted that were scattered throughout the quaint little bedroom, were suddenly extinguished, purging the room into an eerie, haunting sort of horrible, pitch blackness.

Shivering through her gritted teeth, Hope shrank back against the mountain of pillows as much as it would allow her to, suddenly terrified of the young man in front of her.

"Mr. Lupin, sir, why don't we all just… _calm down_ here, okay? We—we don't want to re-enact a scene from Grindelwald's defeat here, _do_ we?" Jacob weakly joked.

But Hope ignored the other man's pitiful attempt at a joke meant to diffuse the swelling tension in the room. If the men—wizards—who had threatened her life before were terrifying, this was now a hundred times worse.

She had been _chased_ , _interrogated_ , _threatened_ , and now, Hope could add being _yelled_ at to the top of her list. What was it about this Friday evening that hated her so much?!

Why was she here, and more to the point besides, where was here? Confused wasn't even half of what Hope was feeling right now as she bit down on her bottom lip, blinking back the tears that threatened to escape her lids.

"Miss Howell?" The man's voice, unmistakably Lyall's, had gone rather soft and quiet again, reverted to its usual timid, tenor-like tones as the worst of his anger vanished.

Hope flinched the moment she felt the all-too-familiar touch of Lyall's strong, calloused hand on her shoulder, though she did not grant Lupin the courtesy of reacting.

Right now, she just wanted to be left well _alone_. Hope wanted to wake up from this dreadful nightmare, for what else could it possibly be?! Lyall's voice came again, urgent.

"Miss Howell, _please_. Hope. Please look at me. I—I shouldn't have lost my temper with you. Th—that was rude and inconsiderate of me. I…I'm sorry, Hope. I apologize."

Hope wanted nothing more than to tell Lyall Lupin that yes, it was _very_ rude and inconsiderate towards her feelings! She was _not_ in the mood to be yelled at, simply because she did not understand her surroundings, much less what on God's green earth was going on right now. The who, the why, the what, the where! _None_ of it!

Hope felt she did not deserve to be scolded for her lack of understanding, much less not wanting to accept the fact based on word of mouth that magic existed. That little stunt Lyall had just pulled with her cup of soup had to be a sort of optical illusion or something, Hope rationalized. She'd not asked for _any_ of this.

But God, she didn't _want_ any of this! She had enough problems as it was in her normal life with dealing with Janey's son's Robert's unwanted advances that were increasing in frequency, her coworkers' sometimes annoying and rude comments, and now she had _this_ —whatever was happening to her—on her plate of things to do with, and it was entirely too much.

" _Just leave me alone, Lupin! Go away_!" she shouted, however, due to how hoarse her voice was from lack of water, the demand did not come off quite as intimidating as she'd hoped. In fact, it sounded downright pitiful, yes.

Hope sharply turned her head to the right and ducked her head so she'd not have to bear to look into his eyes.

For a long moment, there was nothing but awkward silence.

Then there was the unmistakable sound of retreating footsteps, two pairs of them, and Hope did not even have to look up from burying her head in her hands to know that the two men had honored her request to be left alone.

She was, like it or not, now one hundred percent, alone.

* * *

**Eep. Well, that could have gone a lot better, if you ask me! Though in Lyall's defense, I don't think he had a choice. Hope Howell isn't a stupid woman, and could already figure out something was amiss that the others weren't telling her. Coming up in Ch. 13, Lyall attempts to ask Newt, Tina, and Jacob for advice.**


	13. Of Rolling Nerves and Reassurances

**13**

**LUPIN** stifled his growl of anger, sighing heavily as he stalked down the hallway to meet Newt at his front door, sensing Jacob Kowalski out of the corner of his peripherals sigh heavily before gingerly closing the bedroom door behind him and trudging along rather haphazardly after Lupin.

His sights remained fixated firmly on the door, not wanting to meet either Newt or Tina's questioning gaze.

Lyall was having immense difficulty coming to terms with the fact that he had lost his temper with her just now.

The moment he stormed out of Hope Howell's room, the man felt a crushing sense of regret and extreme guilt.

He had behaved towards Miss Howell so rudely just a moment ago and seeing the unshed tears in Hope's eyes very nearly crippled the distraught wizard with his newfound feeling of guilt that felt like it was crushing his shoulders with its weighted burden, knowing he needed to find a way to apologize to the young woman and make amends, though not knowing where to begin, if Hope would even _want_ to see him after the little stunt he'd pulled.

Lupin knew he owed an apology to her, and he could only pray and hope that Hope might forgive him his misdeed. It was…utterly nonsensical and unfounded, and the fear, Merlin's Beard, the _fear_ in her eyes!

Surely, Hope _hated_ him by now, and she would be well within her rights to do so.

It was unknown to Lupin how long he stood outside of Hope Howell's room, just across the hallway from the spare bedroom that Tina and Newt had put her up in for the night, assuming she'd be well enough to return to her own home in the morning, alongside Lyall for protection, of course, but now, there was a good chance that part of the plan was muddled, considering what an utter fool he'd made of himself just now.

Lyall growled in frustration, carding his fingers through his brown hair, gnashing his teeth together in annoyance, thinking how he deserved to dig his own grave and bury himself in it for his stupidity.

He did not want to look into either Scamander's eyes and see the shame within his friends' faces.

Lupin could hear Tina hitch in a breath of nervousness, and Lupin fought against the deep, instinctive urge to fling open the door without waiting for Newt to get his bearings, much less his coat, and Disapparate without the older wizard.

The intensity of Jacob's stare burned him, causing him to feel like Jacob was piercing a hole through the back of his skull until Lyall could no longer stand it anymore despite his best efforts to ignore his mentor's friend's stare.

He feared at any moment with the intensity of the Muggle man's staring, he'd be reduced to little more than ashes.

Whirling around on his heels, Lupin struggled within himself as his temper threatened to implode, though it was not coming from a place of anger, but rather, of hot embarrassment and shame at how he'd reacted just now.

"I hope you're _pleased_ with yourself, Mr. Lupin," Jacob grumbled irritably as the pudgy man practically heaved trying to catch his breath, clutching at the stitch in his side.

Lupin stifled a low warning growl that rumbled from deep within his chest as he glanced up sharply to the left to regard Queenie Kowalski's Muggle husband, only to find that the man had opted to stand alongside Newt, almost so close they were practically shoulder-to-shoulder, his expression quite grim and unlike the jovial, cheerful man.

The poor distraught young wizard very nearly jumped out of his own skin when suddenly, Tina's soft, quiet voice rent the air, and she sounded quite melancholic,

"What happened?" she pressed, the innocent question drifting through the air and lingering in front of Lupin.

Tina Scamander sensed her husband's protégé's confusion and after swallowing hard, she spoke once more.

"I take it then, by the look on your face, it didn't go well?" she asked gently, and only when Lyall pointedly ducked his head and allowed a lock of his light brown bangs to tumble in front of his eyes and effectively shield his vision from everyone in the hallway by the front door, did Tina realized that things had, in fact, gone wrong. Horribly wrong.

She could have sworn she'd heard shouting coming from behind the closed spare bedroom door, but Tina knew, just as Newt did, it was not her place to intervene, and whatever issues needing hashing out were strictly between Lyall Lupin and that Muggle girl, and no one else. She and Newt could not interfere with them.

" _What_?!" came Newt Scamander's quiet voice that held a slight warble to it, laced with a slight twinge of unease, as though he severely regretted asking the question he was about to ask as he curiously looked towards his wife, "Merlin pray tell me, Tina, is that that my protégé appears to have supposedly done to that girl? Did you _harm_ her?" he demanded, swiveling his gaze towards Lyall rather sharply and fixing Lyall with a somewhat pointed glower.

Lyall felt his face drain of shock as his head whiplashed sharply upward and he reluctantly tore his gaze away from shamefacedly looking down at his shoes, at anywhere but at the judgmental stares of Newt, Tina, Jacob, and now Queenie.

Lupin startled at the appearance of the striking blonde witch.

_When did she get here_?! Lyall thought wildly, biting the wall of his cheek, though he offered no formal greeting to Jacob's wife. He'd not even heard the woman Apparate.

"No, at least not _physically_ if that's what you're asking, Newt," Jacob's wife, Queenie, spoke up in a low, breathy voice.

Lyall did not even have to look into the woman's gaze to know that the natural-Legilimens was dipping into his mind, though it wasn't like the witch could help it.

Lyall felt his blood surge and course within his veins at Queenie Kowalski's words, though he made no effort to confirm or deny her statement, he did flinch as a collective audible gasp of surprise was heard from everyone except for Lyall and Queenie, who knew the full truth.

Though Hope was no longer in the same vicinity as him, he could swear he felt her dark chocolate brown eyes on him.

He wondered as he felt his jaw muscles tense and lock up as his teeth ground together in anger and annoyance at his stupidity, what she was thinking of him right now, if anything at all, or if Hope was struggling to try to forget him.

Just the thought made him want to throw back his head and let out an anguished yell, though Lyall refrained.

Was she thinking of him in awe at what he had done or disgust? Was he a bully or a savior in her eyes? Her hero?

A disgusting bully, no doubt, considering the despicable way he had behaved to Miss Howell not even mere moments ago, still so fresh in his mind, but it was more than easy and a little disconcerting for Lyall to pretend he saw wonderment and awe in those beautiful eyes of hers.

"I…" Lyall began softly, trying to string his words together in a coherent enough explanation that would make sense, as the others had not been there to see her reaction, to dwell on the fear within the woman's chocolate eyes… "I think I _hurt_ her, Mrs. Scamander. Newt," he whispered.

This statement shocked all four individuals who now looked at him with equal looks of confusion, shock, and disbelief on their faces before returning their attention towards Lyall, clearly demanding an explanation for his words, judging by the way they all were looking at Lyall.

"What?!" Jacob spluttered and stammered nervously.

"What do you mean, you 'hurt her?'" challenged Newt, who was merely looking thoughtful and not at all angry like Lyall had expected his mentor and colleague to be, which gave him pause, but left him no time to react or dwell on it.

"Start making sense, Mr. Lupin, if you please," Tina murmured, glancing at her husband out of the corner of her eye with no small measure of concern in her eyes.

Lupin slowly nodded his head, nervously lifting his gaze to meet Queenie's eyes with his own, and tried his best not to shirk away in shame.

Queenie thus far had not reacted at all to his admission, but then she didn't need to, having been the only one with the ability to read the man's mind.

Lyall's first impression of Tina's sister was that her smile was twisted, and it currently looked as though it didn't belong on her pale face.

He felt a negative vibe emanating from the Legilimens as she bore into Lyall's eyes with hers.

As well as her smile, Queenie's breathless voice seemed out of place as well.

It was smooth and sounded as though it belonged to someone half her age, though the witch was still quite strikingly pretty at fifty-three, admittedly still something of what other men called a 'bombshell', her fading blonde hair ending at her chin in loose curls.

It was most unsettling, the way that Queenie was reading Lupin's mind.

Though before Lyall could open his mouth to speak to stammer out a half-hearted brief explanation to everyone else who couldn't read his mind of how he'd made an utter fool of himself, Queenie folded her arms across her chest and gazed across the way at him, her pale green eyes alight with severe disapproval at how Lupin had lost his temper and had flown off the handle at Hope's initial reaction when he had admitted to her the honest truth.

"Hmph. The girl is beside herself with confusion and is in a tremendous amount of fear, which shouldn't be surprising considering the circumstances of the ordeal she's been through tonight," Queenie huffed in annoyance, though not with Hope Howell, but towards Lyall's actions. "She is in no condition to be approached by anyone for a little while. I suggest we let her use this time to cope in whatever way is going to work best for her, Newt, Tina."

After a few failed attempts, the shy, clever young wizard launched into a brief explanation of everything thus far that had transpired between him and Hope in the Scamander's guest bedroom behind closed doors.

Though not without great difficulty, as he felt himself physically recoil as the image of her terrified expression flitted through the front of his mind when he got to the part where he had used his wand in front of Hope to stop her soup cup from falling.

Tina, Newt, Jacob, and Queenie all stood quietly when the wizard and distraught young man had finished his retelling of events.

To be honest, it was nothing short of amazing that Jacob hadn't managed one snarky comment throughout all of Lyall's explanation, as he'd been privy to it and something of a witness in the corner of the room at the time, as the man told the others of the predicament he and his temper had gotten himself into and desperately seeking their solace and advice for how to fix the problem.

With the suspense practically killing him by the time he had finished, rendering his heart pounding against his chest, Lyall painfully wrung his hands together and restlessly began pacing back and forth in a repeated motion by the door.

If everyone here was so intent in thought, then he must have _really_ messed things up for himself and gotten both him and Hope into a fix, and especially if Jacob, Merlin bless his soul, was thinking as hard as he appeared to be.

Finally, it was Queenie who managed to break the silence.

"She's going to be okay, Mr. Lupin," Queenie offered softly, though offered up no other explanation than that, which did not exactly set poor Lupin's mind at ease.

Newt and Tina Scamander took a moment to shoot equally disturbed and concerning expressions at one another.

Obviously wary of the impending temper within Lyall threatening to implode if the situation could not be de-escalated and relatively soon, at that, despite this, the married couple chose to remain silent.

It appeared, in their minds, according to Lyall's silently pensive observation that they believed him to butt heads with Queenie, not wanting to give in and admit that he had wronged Hope just now.

Newt Scamander narrowed his eyes at his fellow wizard before turning his gaze downward, a glimpse of resigned frustration and just a twinge of guilt in Lyall's pale features.

The Magizoologist's sharp eyes noticed the somewhat subtle change in his protégé and surprisingly enough, Newt found that he could not help but feel just the slightest twinge of pity for Lyall.

He knew speaking from his own experience what it was like to be so affected by a woman, and for the said woman in question not to even realize the profound effect she would have on you until it's too late.

It did not appear to the Ministry worker that Lupin had gone out of his way to frighten the poor thing, and yet Lyall had done just that, nonetheless, unintentionally.

And while Newt was not at all comfortable with yet again the idea of the distraught young Muggle woman staying the night in his home, if Queenie's words were true, and the blonde witch had given him no reason to doubt his sister-in-law's words, the skilled Legilimens that she was, then that meant that poor Miss Howell was beside herself upon learning the truth that her saviors were both wizards.

It was then that an idea began to take root in Newt's mind. He wasn't exactly sure what was possessing him to do this.

For all he knew the young Muggle woman was extremely dangerous, in her own way, in her present physical and mental state of mind. The harm she could do unto herself and others was rather frightening in his mind.

Yet, his sense of pride and moral compass, despite his initial hesitance to believe the young woman's words when she told him earlier that her bag was not made of dragonhide, he wanted someone to look after this stranger that had so mysteriously managed to captivate Lyall in the span of a few short hours over the course of a single eve.

Besides, what sort of host would he and Tina be to their guest if someone in their household did not offer the poor dear a proper welcome?

Not a very good one, Newt knew. Miss Hope Howell in her current state could probably do with a new cup of hot cocoa and perhaps a light little something to settle her stomach, assuming she'd managed to eat the soup and the bread Tina had made for her earlier.

"Jacob," he began cautiously, choosing his words carefully as he struggled to formulate the nature of his unusual request to his dear friend in words, breaking the silence and swiveling his head to look towards the only other Muggle standing under his roof alongside Miss Howell.

Jacob blinked owlishly at Newt addressing him, but his friend quickly nodded and returned to attention.

"I don't suppose while Lyall and I are away, you could see to it she gets a cup of tea and maybe the two of you could sit and chat, Jacob?"

Whatever Jacob had been expecting Newt to say, this was…not it.

He spluttered and stammered to think of a retort as the tips of his mustache twitched, but when the man opened his mouth to speak, nothing coherent left his lips, though, by some miracle of Merlin, he found his voice.

"M— _me_?" Jacob stammered, staring at Newt incredulously as though he could not quite believe what he was hearing. "Wh—wouldn't _Tina_ be better suited for this? I—I mean, no offense, Tina, but you're a _woman_ , a—and isn't this kind of thing better suited for a woman's touch?"

Newt merely shrugged his shoulders by way of response, indicating to everyone standing by the front door that he had no idea of his impromptu plan would work.

"Perhaps, but you're the only other Muggle inside this house. Miss Howell needs someone that she will be able to open up to and relate to, and considering you were once in a similar position, I think _you're_ the best one suited for this, Jacob. I fear that Hope seeing any one of us given her current emotionally vulnerable state would only be a danger to her."

Here, he glanced towards Lyall, and it did not escape Scamander's attention how quickly Lyall had become pale. It was evident by the stricken forlorn look on the thirty-year-old wizard's face that Lupin was hoping he hadn't hurt Hope Howell too badly when he had yelled at her a moment ago.

Both Newt and Tina had heard Lyall's voice carry well through the closed door as he had raised his voice and shouted at Miss Howell in his growing anger, his temper threatening to boil over.

Lyall had quite an intimidating presence and his voice commanded authority and respect…when the man so wished it, of course, that was.

While Miss Howell certainly did not owe the wizard any semblance of forgiveness for the way he'd behaved towards her just now, it quickly became clear to Newt that Lyall was still hoping that he could somehow earn it from her, and it was this thought that prompted him to continue.

"I don't think you have anything to worry about, Jacob," Newt pressed onward in what he hoped was a calm, resolute voice. "Might I suggest talking with the young woman over a nice cup of hot cocoa? It does wonders to soothe the soul when upset. Queenie can get you some."

Jacob still looked shocked, but less than he had expected to be, and upon receiving a particularly dazzling white smile from his wife that, even after all these years of marriage, still sent his heart careening against its cage of bone and cartilage, never failing to make him weak at the knees, gave him the newfound resolve to want to do this for the girl.

Tina smiled, relieved, Lyall thought, that her husband had come up with such a thoughtful and insightful plan and gave him an affectionate pat on the arm before turning towards Lupin, wanting to chime in with her two cents before the men Disapparated, offering her sister a curt nod as Queenie intertwined her arm with Jacob and began chatting away animatedly about something or other as she led her husband off to Newt and Tina's kitchen to prepare that cup of cocoa for the poor young Muggle who they guessed was probably crying her eyes out into her pillow.

She pursed her lips into a thin, unmovable line before speaking in a calm and collected tone, the hint of the former Auror that she was seeping its way to the surface.

"Mr. Lupin, forcing that young woman to talk to you will only drive a wedge between the two of you in your new acquaintance. I can tell that you care about her, we _all_ can see it," she added, the edges of her lips turning upwards at the faint blush speckling its way along Lyall Lupin's cheeks.

He cringed, shooting Tina and Newt a furtive, guilty look as he awkwardly shifted his weight from one foot to the next and shoved his trembling fists inside his coat pockets.

Had he really been _that_ obvious to everyone here?

Tina chuckled softly at the bewildered expression that was no doubt evident on Lyall's face, though he could not see it as they'd hung no mirror on the wall in the front entryway near the front door of their simple little cottage.

Not because it was funny to her, but because of her husband's protégé at the Ministry of Magic, this man, this lover of non-corporeal entities and all manner of Dark creatures that were Non-Spirituous Apparitions, was perhaps for the first time in his life, affected by a woman.

But rather, because Tina was filled to the brim with an unbelievable feeling of happiness that the lonesome, clever, and shy young man, still quite young in his early thirties, had a real chance at finding his own measure of happiness for a change, rather than burying himself in his work as Lupin was prone to do simply to avoid social interactions.

He was so like Newt in that regard, it almost wasn't funny, how eerily similar, and alike they were in many ways.

Tina's smile faltered slightly as Lyall lifted his gaze and she could see in the dim yellow light from the lamp fixture overheard in their front entryway's hallway just how much color the poor man had lost.

This little incident, perhaps even the night as a whole, had affected him and rocked the man to his core and had shaken Lyall Lupin quite badly.

"I don't know what was said between the two of you back there," Tina said with a little sigh as she jerked her head in the direction of the hall that led to their spare bedroom, "but whatever is going through her mind right now, considering the shock and severity of what you just revealed to her, after the night she's had, it's enough to make the poor woman feel extremely uncomfortable, so uncomfortable that she doesn't want to face it, but she has to. Allow the poor thing a moment to grieve after the night she's had. Her mind will process it in its own time, Lupin. I advise for now leaving the matter alone and speaking to her upon your return. Since she will be staying with us until the morning, perhaps this would be a conversation better suited until the morning, perhaps over a good cup of tea or coffee, but you can see if she's awake when the two of you return. You have to be patient on this, Mr. Lupin. Let the Muggle woman come to you, and she _will_. I guarantee it."

Lupin let out a haggard sigh, feeling a vein twitch in his brow as the young wizard's eyes grew painfully sad as he raised his right hand to allow it to pass over the features of his ashen and exhausted face, growing more and more fatigued and on the brink of collapse the longer he stood here like this.

He knew the sooner he and Newt traveled back to the Welsh forest and rounded up that stranger in the woods that attacked Hope Howell, he could be brought into the Ministry for questioning and then perhaps convicted.

Perhaps even they would learn the truth, if that brutish-looking hulking monster of a man was the one behind the awful murders that had been plaguing Cardiff for the better part of eight months, the murders unsolved.

When the appendage ghosted over the bridge of his slender nose, Lyall stopped and gave it a rather sharp pinch in slight self-frustration, silently still berating himself in his mind for how he had treated Hope when she had initially reacted so poorly towards his secret that he was a wizard.

Lupin knew Newt's wife was right. While it was not at all the answer that he wanted to hear, it was the correct one. He knew that Tina Scamander was right in this regard.

The retired Auror was scarcely ever wrong when it came to more delicate and sensitive matters such as this one, he knew, and he was grateful he had opened up to her tonight.

"You're right, Mrs. Scamander," he murmured, merely looking thoughtful as he lowered his hand and wearily rubbed one of his arms rather nervously as he looked towards Newt, who offered a slight nod of his head in response.

He too, it seemed, was eager to get on with it.

"Miss Howell will talk to me when she feels she is ready. I already saw what happened when I pressed her for an explanation and for her to say something to me when she clearly wasn't ready. I won't do that again, Tina, I swear it."

"Good!" Newt piped up cheerfully, beginning to sound like his old self again now that the topic of dragonhide and animal-skin products were behind him as he clapped Lyall on the shoulder and twisted open the doorknob, flinging it wide open.

Lyall shivered as a gust of cold wind heralded its way through the door, and if nothing else, he thought, as he reluctantly allowed Mr. Scamander to lead him out onto the front porch of his cottage so the two men could Disapparate again to the Welsh forest in search of that man who'd attacked Hope, he was grateful he'd managed to locate Hope and bring her back here when they had.

If they were still out in those woods in this weather, Hope surely would have caught a cold, and Lyall did not think his conscience could handle it if he allowed the beautiful young Muggle to get sick because of his carelessness.

And yet, Lyall could not quite shake the sense of dread from his spine as Newt, without so much as a word to the younger man, took his hand and Disapparated with him side-by-side, that something was horribly wrong.

Lyall closed his strained eyes, forcing such an unhelpful and negative thought from his mind, thinking it would do his already troubled conscience no good to dwell on it.

He was so horribly confused and still utterly lost for as to what to do in order to make amends with Hope, but something good had come out of it, he thought, as the pair of men's feet touched the solid hard barren forest floor for the second time in one night.

Tina was right, Merlin blesses her soul forever. He just needed to let her come to him when he was ready, Lyall tried to tell himself as the men regained their equilibrium now that they were standing on solid ground again and began to walk in the direction they'd last seen the man where Newt had left him sprawled unconscious on the ground. He did not want to push Hope even further away.

It was this thought that propelled his feet forward as he had to practically jog to keep up with Scamander's lengthy strides, that gave him the newfound resolve to find the brute that had viciously attacked and threatened to torture Miss Howell for information.

To put an end to this before he could get it in his thick skull to come after her again.

That he was doing this for her, so that hopefully, by the time he returned, she would be ready to talk to him again.

And Lyall knew he'd be there for her when she did.

* * *

**Glad Lupin was able to get some advice from his friends. Coming up, Hope has a chat with Jacob over tea, Muggle-to-Muggle as Jacob attempts to calm Hope down from her shock.**


	14. To Sit as Friends

**14**

**JACOB** grumbled to himself under his breath for what had to be the third or fourth time as he struggled to balance the heavily laden tray in his hands, trying not to spill a drop or a crumb of the cookie while he made his way slowly and carefully towards the Scamander's spare bedroom for guests, of which this girl, this Hope character, was certainly a guest in their home tonight, it would seem, Jacob rationalized.

_Odd_. Odd was the only word the man could use to describe the turn his otherwise typical night at home in their apartment in New York City with Queenie had taken.

One moment he'd been relaxing with a glass of brandy in his hand after a long day at the bakery he proudly owned, and then the next, Tina Scamander's voice had rung out from their fireplace in their living room, startling Jacob so badly he'd sloshed brandy down his chin and the front of his new shirt, much to his displeasure and chagrin.

He'd suspected the message had been intended for her sister and had gone to fetch Queenie, who'd been in the midst of making his favorite strudel, God bless that beloved woman, when Tina had insisted that _he_ was the reason she'd called.

That Tina and Newt were in dire need of dealing with his help, that they could use his expertise in calming a young woman down. When Jacob had questioned Tina, asking why it was that they simply couldn't use their magic to do it, she had hesitated to explain, but after a moment, had relented, and informed him in a brief explanation that one of Newt's colleagues, his own protégé, as it so happened, had stumbled across a non-magical young woman in a forest infested with a number of Dark creatures and was badly frightened, in need of a few friendly faces and preferably, someone sympathetic to her plight upon learning that magic was very real. It was at that statement that Jacob knew he had to find a way to help if he could.

Though, as he shuffled his way down the hallway towards Miss Howell's bedroom that Tina had put her up in for the night, the native New Yorker wasn't sure this was Newt's best idea, after all.

Yes, he was a Muggle, of that Newt wasn't wrong in that regard, as much as Jacob found himself wishing he were a wizard, there was no changing the fact that he'd never be one, but he still doubted there was little that he could do to help the girl cope with all of this.

To say that Jacob Kowalski was feeling severely out of place in all of this was something of an understatement.

Jacob blinked as he heard a muffled noise that sounded like a half-choked little sob coming from behind the closed door of Newt and Tina's spare bedroom, a sound that caused the strings of his heart to tug and give a little lurch.

He glanced down at the tea tray in his hands and shifted the piping hot tea mug more to the left to make room for the somewhat pitiable-looking four chocolate chip cookies that Queenie had managed to dig out of Tina's pantry.

Jacob drew in a deep breath to settle his nerves, wishing that Tina or Queenie, or pretty much anyone else but him had been assigned this somewhat daunting task of trying to calm the girl down, to settle his nerves, before forcing himself to lift the semi-heavy burden that was this tea tray in his arms and raised his knuckles to knock on the door.

He prayed that the young woman, this Miss Howell would not be as sometimes hot-headed as Newt's wife, Tina, could be, or God forbid, Queenie whenever she was angry.

Though at this point, Jacob did not dare to hope at all.

* * *

Hope let out a groan, exhaling a shaking breath as she leaned her forehead against her wrists, hopelessness filling her heart as her exhausted mind struggled to process the act of… _magic_ , that Lyall performed in front of her earlier.

She shivered, clenching her teeth shut and squeezing her eyes tightly closed, taking a moment to regulate her breaths before slowly opening them again and staring deeply into the flames of the lighted fireplace.

The tongues of the fire danced in a myriad of hues of red and orange and yellow. A log would pop on occasion, causing the wood to settle down further into the metal bracket.

For an inexplicable moment, Hope wished that she could just…step into the fireplace and call out the address of her flat and the fireplace could somehow magically whisk her back home.

Hope's eyes widened as she realized what she was doing to herself, and she smacked her forehead with the flat of her palm and dragged it down along the side of her face.

"Get a _hold_ of yourself, Hope," she murmured in a low, hushed voice that was barely above a whisper. "You're talking to yourself as though m—magic actually _exists_!"

_It doesn't! It can't! That's impossible! We—I—I would have surely seen it in the streets, wizards and witches and dragons, wouldn't I_?

None of this was making any sense to her, and her mind felt like it was utterly reeling in shock, disbelief, and guilt.

And it was the guilt that the distraught young Muggle woman chose to focus on in this particular moment.

The moment Lupin had turned on his heels to go, Hope was stricken with an extreme sense of guilt and regret towards how she'd reacted towards his little display of magic.

Whether or not it was an optical illusion or just quick reflexes on Lyall's part, Hope couldn't know for sure, and it was the ambiguity of not knowing that killed her.

She had treated Mr. Lupin so coldly, not allowing her savior a moment to explain himself to the point where she had hurt him, had wounded him more deeply than she ever could have dreamed of by shouting at the man and demanding her leave her alone, and now…he was gone.

Hope could feel bile rising in her throat and all she wanted to do was throw back her head and _scream_!

What on earth had she _done_?! She did the only thing her body would allow her to do in this regard. Hope rested her head in her hands and let out a single, soft, choking sob.

She had pushed Lyall Lupin away from her when the only crime he had supposedly committed against her was to tell her the truth, and it was a shocking truth at that.

There was still a large part of Hope's mind that was convinced this was all a horrible dream, that she was still lost in those dark woods. Hope was unable to repress the violent shiver that clawed its way up her spine, down her back, and through her heart.

_If only there was a way Mr. Lupin or Mr. Scamander could magic me instantly back home and away from this strange place_ , Hope thought bitterly to herself as she drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms about them, resting her chin on her knees.

A million and one thoughts were racing through poor young Hope's mind, going a mile a minute.

_I wonder if Janey tried to call while I was still lost in those woods. What if she's worried something happened? What if she called the police and tried to report me missing? Oh, I bet poor Janey is worried sick!_

_I've no way to let her know! Do wizards even use telephones? How am I supposed to call for help? Do they drive a car, or—or magic themselves everywhere they need to go? How on earth will I get back home?_

_How long am I going to be here? Am I prisoner here now that I know the truth? Will they let me leave? What will they do to me? Will Lyall take me back home once morning comes?_

_What's going to happen to me? If—if there really IS such a thing as magic, a—and witches and wizards, am I even allowed to know all of this_?

Too many questions and no answers, _and_ to top it all off, she had pushed Lyall away, the one man in the entire evening thus far who had treated her with an ounce of kindness and caring, and because of her and the horrible way she'd yelled at him, now that young man was gone.

She would be lucky if he returned and wished to speak to her again. Hope exhaled a shaking breath through her nose.

Hope could only hope that if he did decide to try to speak to her when he got back from those stupid woods with Mr. Scamander, that the man would at least hear her out, as she owed the man a grave apology, and could only pray that she might be forgiven by the harsh, cold way she had reacted.

Seeing the antagonizing look of hurt on his face, the unshed tears in Lupin's light, kind hazel brown eyes very nearly crippled poor Hope with an overwhelming sense of guilt and remorse for how she had yelled at him earlier.

Hope let out a haggard sigh and glanced down at the book clutched close to her chest, feeling the worst of her fear and confusion evaporate as she held steadfast and tight onto the little paperback copy of _The Hobbit_ as though her very life depended on it, and right now, maybe, her life did.

The book was a relatively small copy, no bigger than five inches wide or seven inches tall. The paperback book was just the right size to stuff into her small handbag for on-the-go reading or during her one-hour lunch breaks at the office when she didn't feel like leaving the office for lunch.

If Hope were to open the book to the inside cover, the first thing she would see was a man of all of Middle-Earth.

The book's cover was a rich, dark forest green, the title letters shining in gold print, and the edges of the pages were gold, the maps, and illustrations scattered throughout.

She let out a pitiful half-choked sob as the pads of her fingertips delicately traced over the gold letters of the title.

_Bilbo Baggins wouldn't react this way to learn magic exists_ , Hope thought disparagingly to herself, blinking back a fresh wave of tears. _But then, he LIVES in a world where magic exists, a—and I guess…I do too now…Oh, but who am I kidding, Hope? This is insane!_

Hope was having trouble fathoming the idea that she was even entertaining the possibility of magic existing in a world parallel and secret to hers, but as her mind flitted through the details of what had happened to her this evening, it all seemed like it was beginning to make sense in her mind.

Mr. Scamander's strange name and attire, the knickknacks on his shelves in the spare bedroom she was staying in, how those brutes in the woods seemed to just…magically appear out of nowhere, and then there was Lyall's little stunt earlier to stop her hot cup of soup from spilling.

But how utterly _ridiculous_ this all was! Magic—magic couldn't be _real_! Surely, she would have seen it happening around her, wouldn't she? She furrowed her brows in confusion and pursed her lips into a thin line.

_Maybe these…wizards_ , here she gulped nervously and gave her head a curt little shake to try to clear her mind, _are private folks, just like Mr. Baggins in my book, who just wants to be left alone and have no adventures and read his books_. _Besides, if normal people DID know about magic, they'd probably be wanting these…magical people to try to solve all their problems_ … Hope gave her head a nod.

If all of this was real, it had to be the only plausible explanation.

The sound of a light rapping of heavy knuckles on her closed bedroom door startled young Hope out of her truly alarming thoughts at that exact moment.

A startled cry left her lips as Hope jerked her head upwards and twisted herself a bit, still clutching her book close to her chest so she could face whoever had entered the bedroom.

Her face quickly fell, crestfallen, as her gaze landed upon the sight of the dark-haired stranger who'd arrived a little bit ago, Jacob, she thought his name was.

The pudgy, somewhat overweight man was standing in the now-open doorway, carrying a heavily laden tea tray with a steaming cup of tea and what looked to be a couple of cookies on a plate, and looking utterly lost and confused and timid.

She had secretly been hoping Lyall would have returned by now and had wanted to see her.

Hope knew she owed him an apology for the truly despicable way she had behaved, and Hope could only hope the man would accept her apology.

Nevertheless, upon catching the briefest glimpses of disappointment flitting across the man's dark brown eyes, Hope forced a rather strained smile on her face, feeling the skin beneath her lids crumple, though her lips fought against her urge to be molded falsely into a reluctant smile.

"E—excuse me, Miss Howell," he stammered, taking a rather bumbling step in through the front door, crossing the threshold that separated the hallway from the bedroom, all the while eyeing her warily and taking a few steps to the side in order to keep a relatively safe distance. "I—I don't mean to interrupt…whatever it is that you're doing, b—but Mr. Scamander thought you'd like a nice cup of tea, mum."

"H—Huh?" Hope stammered, her voice soft and faint. She only watched as the man nodded with a jerk of his head towards the tray in his hands.

When she did not answer him, Jacob slowly came forward to set it down on the night table next to the bed that she was still resting in, an afghan blanket draped over her knees. She blinked at the tray in curiosity.

Was this man…was he _actually_ offering her refreshments, after the horrible way that she'd behaved?

Hope couldn't help but to feel somewhat dazed and confused, after all, since ending up…here, no one, save for perhaps Lyall, had thought to treat her with the slightest inkling of normalcy, and here this man was, offering her a cup of tea and what looked to be chocolate chip cookies.

Though it quickly became apparent he found her somewhat intimidating as Jacob Kowalski was constantly looking everywhere but directly at her.

It wasn't until the older man took a nervous step backward, fiddling nervously with his fingers, the edges of his thin dark mustache twitching without prompting, as he turned abruptly to leave that Hope realized she'd not thanked him for the cookies.

"Wait!" she called out, grunting with the effort to free herself from the entanglement of her bedsheets.

She flinched at how desperate and loud her tone sounded.

The poor man in response to her unexpected plea actually lost his footing and very nearly fell back against the wood door.

Letting out a little gasp of surprise, she covered her mouth with her hand and quickly scrambled to her feet, lunging forward on her bare heels in order to help him.

"Oh, no, I—I'm so _sorry_ , sir, I—I didn't mean to…are you all right? I didn't mean to—to scare you like that, sir, I'm really so very sorry." And she looked it, too, Jacob noticed, out of the corner of his eye as he met her gaze. "Seems like nothing I do tonight is turning outright. A—are you sure you're not hurt? You're _sure_ you're okay?"

Without waiting for a proper response from this Mr. Kowalski, who Hope had yet to truly get acquainted with on a personal level, beyond from knowing the man's name, Hope shot out an arm and latched onto the man's forearm, helping the poor bloke to stand upright on his own again.

Mr. Kowalski instantly took a staggering step back and straightened his tie in order to look somewhat presentable again, looking flustered and quite embarrassed as he did so.

Hope flinched, inwardly berating herself for invading this stranger's personal space. "Um, yes, I'm fine, Miss Howell, th—thanks for askin'," Jacob murmured under his breath, his mustache twitching as he spoke in a low, uncomfortable tone.

He refused to meet her eyes, instead of looking around the little bedroom, at anywhere, but at Hope, she noted.

"Thank you. Mr. Scamander said to tell you i—if there's anything you need, um, please see me, and I'll do what I can. The others, Newt and Lyall should be back soon. I hope," he muttered darkly under his breath, his gaze flitting and settling somewhat interestedly on her copy of _The Hobbit_ that Hope had set gingerly on top of the mattress when she'd bolted from the bed to help catch Jacob's fall.

Feeling the need to make up for her initial clumsiness and not to mention her sudden desire not to be left alone at the moment while anxiously awaiting Newt and Lyall's return, Hope tried to wrack her brain for something to say, anything that would keep him by her side a minute longer.

"Um," she gazed about her surroundings, looking for something, anything with which she could use to start a decent conversation when she noticed Jacob eyeing her book. "It's—it's a favorite of mine, sir," she breathed, her hazel eyes going wide and round with shock when she noticed a hint of recognition dawning in the man's eyes.

"One of mine as well," he muttered, letting out a somewhat nervous chuckle as Jacob reluctantly tore his gaze away from her book and forced himself to meet Hope's piercing stare once more, as he helped himself to sit down in the armchair that Newt had previously occupied. "You're gonna _need_ it, I'm sure, to help you…get used to it."

Here, he wildly waved his arms as if trying to make a point and out of a nervous habit, let out another laugh.

This time, Mr. Kowalski _did_ look at her before collapsing his head against the headrest of his chair, closing his eyes, and proceeding to let out an exasperated-sounding sigh.

Hope felt a pang of guilt prick at her heartstrings as she could see how utterly tired the poor fellow looked, and she couldn't help but shake the feeling it was entirely her fault.

"I…it's, forgive me, I—it's just that…it's hard to believe all of this is supposed to be _real_ ," she murmured hurriedly. " _Magic_? _Dragons_? _Witches and wizards_? Why—why did they tell me all of this? A—and am I even supposed to _know_ any of this exists? Will I—will I get in trouble now that I know the truth? What will they do to me, sir?" she stammered, looking towards Jacob for confirmation, who was shooting her a sympathetic glance.

Hope swallowed a lump in her throat and pressed on, wanting to apologize. "I'm sorry that I caused Mr. Lupin and Mr. Scamander so much trouble, and I dropped into his home unannounced. I hope I didn't cause any of you too much trouble tonight, sir."

"Oh well, it appears it can't be helped, Miss Howell, so no use worryin' about it," Mr. Kowalski said in a rush and…was that guilt in his eyes?

Hope knitted her brows together in a frown as she settled herself back on the edge of the mattress and held onto her paperback copy of T _he Hobbit_ once more, letting her fingers ghost over the title.

"Why don't you help yourself to a cuppa tea, Miss Howell and one of the cookies that Newt's wife made? They're really good. I'm sure it'll help you feel better, at least a little bit, yes?" he questioned, gesturing towards the steaming mug of tea alongside the plate of cookies he'd brought.

Not wanting to appear rude considering all the fuss she'd caused everyone tonight, Hope offered a nod in return, graciously accepting the cup of hot Earl Grey and wordlessly took a delicious-looking chocolate chip cookie off her plate and nibbled off an edge, find it quite tasty.

She watched in silence as Mr. Kowalski expelled a long sigh of relief, this movement alone signaling just how stressed out he was becoming and Hope somehow felt that it was all connected to her in some way or another now.

Why was he looking so tired and overwhelmed?

Hope had to force herself to think about the cookie in her hands or else the tasty treat would be reduced to crumbs in her grip.

She settled for taking another bite of cookie, the chocolate from the chocolate chips melting and the sweetness lingering upon her tongue in a truly delectable way.

Whoever had baked these, probably Mrs. Scamander, Hope wondered if she would be out of line to ask for a couple of cookies to take home with her in the morning, they would serve as a nice dessert during the evenings after dinner.

She glanced towards Jacob and wracked her brain for something to say. "You look like _you_ aren't having a very good night, either," she said sympathetically as she absentmindedly stirred the teabags in her mug of Earl Grey.

The poor chap's dark brown eyes widened in horror as he brought his head down to stare at Hope in utter alarm and shock. "Ah, n-no, Miss Howell, that's not it at all," he stammered, a light pink blush speckling along his cheeks.

"Just Hope," Hope offered kindly and shot him a somewhat nervous smile, hoping it would calm Jacob down. "May I call you Jacob?" she pressed kindly.

Her smile widened a bit as the man blinked at her owlishly but was able to recover relatively quickly and nodded at Hope.

The man's gaze slowly tapered off as he looked about the bedroom desperately, as though searching for salvation.

_He's afraid of being rude_ , Hope thought wildly, biting down on the tip of her tongue hard enough to draw blood.

To say that there were a million questions burning on the tip of her tongue, just begging to be asked was something of a gross understatement, and Hope didn't know where to start.

But in the end, she asked the only thing she could think of, the one question that perhaps she wanted the answer to the most, that morphed into two more questions.

"Is…is this…real? Am I—am I _dreaming_ , Mr. Kowalski? Is…is Lupin really a _wizard_?" Her eyes widened at just the thought and a startled gasp escaped her lips as she swiveled her gaze back around to meet Jacob's. She'd previously been staring down into her mug of tea while she searched for the right words to begin how best to phrase her initial shock at struggling to process all that had happened. "Are _you_ a _wizard_ , Mr. Kowalski?" Hope gasped breathlessly.

"Just Jacob, Hope, please, I prefer it," Jacob corrected, throwing her words back at the young Muggle woman, but not in an unkind way.

He shot her what Hope presumed was meant to be a sympathetic smile, but in actuality looked more like a pained grimace, his mustache twitching, as the man appeared to be lost in a deep thought of sorts.

Perhaps he was best searching for how to answer Hope's questions.

It seemed to take the poor chap an eternity to find his voice, and when he did, his voice was calm and collected.

"To answer some of your questions, uh, no, I'm _not_ a wizard, but I _wanna_ be one," he murmured sheepishly, reaching up a hand to scratch at an itch behind her ear.

"Is there a way to learn how to be a…a wizard or witch?" Hope questioned immediately, feeling, well…hopeful.

She could think of the first thing she'd do if she possessed the gift of magic, and that was magic her boss, Steve, into a toad, to represent how truly awful he was, warts and all.

Hope quickly found herself clutching onto her book almost painfully, and it was only when she felt the corners of the pages begin to curl in her tight, ironclad grip that she let out a terrified squeak and immediately set the book aside on the night table so as to not damage perhaps her favorite book of all time and returned her attention to Jacob.

Her face instantly fell, and Hope could not repress how her shoulders slumped forward in immense disappointment as she silently watched Newt Scamander's familial relation quickly shake his head no.

"No, sorry to say, Miss Howell, but there isn't. If there _was_ , I woulda been first in line, I think." He scratched at his chin in a pensive thought. "You gotta be born with it, that's what Queenie, my wife, says. Like it's in your blood or somethin', I don't quite understand how it works, but I know well enough, I guess."

Hope slowly nodded her head, and the next question tumbled unchecked from her lips before she could stop herself.

"Why—i—if magic really _is_ real and exists, th—then why haven't we _seen_ it, you know, in the skies, and the streets? I would think it would be pretty hard to keep a _dragon_ a secret, don't you think, Jacob?" she asked, feeling like she already knew the answer, and yet at the same time, wanted to hear it from him.

He clearly had much more experience with this sort of thing than she had, considering he'd married an honest-to-goodness witch.

Hope shivered, but not with fear, but from possible excitement and intrigue that coursed through her veins at the idea of an entire magical world existing in parallel to hers.

Suddenly, it made the world around her seem not so boring and egregiously dull, wondering what was magic and what wasn't.

"'Cause the magical folk like their privacy, Miss Hope, that's why, they got their ways of hiding. Spells and whatnot," Jacob explained in a somber, solemn tone, not unlike his previous jovial nature at all. "Can you imagine what it would be like for them if Muggles and No-Maj's—uh, what they call us non-magical folk," he quickly explained, seeing the look of confusion dawning in Hope's dark brown eyes, "soon discovered that magical folk existed right alongside them in their everyday lives? They'd be getting' hounded constantly, never knowin' any peace."

Hope slowly nodded her head at all of the information, her mind once more drifting back to thoughts of Lyall, thinking how quiet, shy, and reserved Mr. Lupin was.

Perhaps he was that way naturally, or his demeanor stemmed from not wanting to upset the peace in case he did happen to stumble across a…a _Muggle_ , like she was.

The guilt she'd been feeling earlier instantly wormed its way into the pit of her churning stomach as she looked towards Lupin.

"I—I hurt Lyall earlier, with my reaction," she whispered, suddenly feeling a fiery heat creep to her cheeks.

Hope blinked in shock and surprise when Jacob merely waved away her statement with a dismissive wave of his hand and scoffed, rolling his eyes, and telling her not to worry about it, and the older man quickly said as much.

"Don't worry about it, Hope. Mr. Lupin's gonna be just fine. He's one tough nut to crack, and Newt'll talk some sense into him, I'm sure. He knows it's a lot for anybody to take in, but especially you, uh, considering the night you've had," he murmured, lowering his voice an octave, suddenly looking ashamed to have brought up fresh memories.

"Do you really think so?" Hope breathed, hardly daring to believe it, unaware she'd leaned forward off her mountain of pillows and had been hanging onto Jacob's every word.

Hope smiled a bit, overwhelmed by a sudden feeling she couldn't quite name in this fellow non-magical man's presence. Feeling courageous, she asked another question.

"Why are you _here_ , Mr. Kowalski? Did Newt send you in? Do—do you really even _want_ to be here, sir? I—I'm sure you have better things to do with your time than listen to me?" she questioned in a voice that she hoped was kind.

Jacob Kowalski startled a bit upon hearing the young Muggle woman's words, sanguinely lifting his gaze to meet hers, and the sight before him, now that Miss Howell, had calmed down, was more than a little relaxing, for which Jacob was relieved. Newt and Lyall would be relieved to hear she'd calmed down by the time those two got back.

She was framed by the light of the candles on her nightstand warmly.

Her friendly but nervous smile and her rich brown eyes calmed whatever frayed nerves were within Queenie's husband prior. He searched her face for any sign of fear and hesitation, but Jacob could find none within.

He shifted nervously as Hope's expression changed, becoming more crestfallen, and Jacob swore the girl Mr. Lupin had taken a shine to was looking disappointed.

Well, of course she'd ask him that, what else was he thinking she would say, after the horrible night she'd had?

To be quite honest with himself, Jacob wasn't really sure why he had agreed to Newt's request, other than Newt was his friend.

He knew he pitied her position, having been in a similar spot once before when Newt had lost his briefcase back in New York, in a time that seemed like ages ago, but no other answer would come up when he searched his brain.

Was it to ask Miss Howell questions of what she was doing in those woods with a nasty boggart? No. The was the _last_ thing Hope needed. Jacob thought for a moment.

Maybe…maybe he was here to help her, in what way, he didn't know, but maybe if she would let him tell a few stories, perhaps of how he'd first met Newt Scamander, then it might help to assuage some of her fears and general uncertainties about the world she'd been unceremoniously thrust into.

Hope Howell didn't really know, but all Jacob knew was that he was tired of the way that the wizarding community treated people like him and Miss Howell, the Muggles.

He returned his gaze back towards the young woman perched on the bed, watching, waiting, with hopeful eyes.

"I'm not really sure, Miss Howell." His smile returned. "Maybe…maybe I'm just lookin' for a friend in all this."

Hope looked a little shocked but less so than she had expected to be, and she felt the tension in her shoulders leave as she rested her head back against the various pillows, her dark hair splayed out on either side of her with a fan. A hesitant smile flitted across her pretty features.

The candles on her windowsill and on her nightstand flickered as the two sat in a momentary silence before Jacob launched into the story of how he met Newt in New York, but this time, the two weren't strangers anymore. Instead, Hope Howell and Jacob Kowalski sat together.

As friends.


	15. Back to the Woods

**15**

**LUPIN** stifled a growl of annoyance that was in actuality manifesting itself as fear, as his mind was preoccupied on how he'd left things with Hope, praying to Merlin and anyone else up there in the afterlife who'd hear his silent plea, that she would forgive him by the time he returned.

If it were at all possible, the dark Welsh forest that he'd rescued Hope from was now even darker, he observed, opening his eyes the moment he and Newt's feet touched solid ground again. He exhaled a breath of relief, the air leaving his lips as a puff of cold vapor, signaling just how cold it had gotten since the temperatures outside dropped.

"Mr. Scamander? Wh—what do you think I—I should say to her if I…if I see her? She—she didn't want to _look_ at me, Newt, you should have _seen_ the way she looked at me," Lyall managed to stammer out after clearing his throat, causing Newt to halt in his tracks, stopping short and glancing back over his shoulder at his young protégé.

"Well, then why don't you try to get her to look again?" he asked, his shy, sometimes timid voice that reminded Lyall so often of his own mannerisms, it was almost painful for him, and yet it was slightly concerned. He was not quite certain he had ever seen the young thirty-year-old this flustered over a young Muggle woman before. Newt paused to scratch at his chin contemplatively, lost in thought. _No_.

Scratch that. He'd _never_ seen Lupin flustered over a woman before, period. Mr. Scamander turned at the waist slightly, shoving his hands in the pockets of his favorite blue trench coat, and was just able to make out the young man's dark silhouette just beside an old gnarled oak tree.

Grumbling to himself under his breath, Newt felt his fingers curl around the handle of his wand as he forced his wand hand from the relative warmth and comfort of his pocket, pointing his wand out in front of him, murmuring, " _Lumos_!"

And was instantly rewarded for his efforts of uttering the Wand-Lighting Charm when a burst of white light erupted from the tip of his wand, bathing Lupin's already pallid features in the almost blinding white light.

The edges of Newt's lips curled upward into a soft smirk as Lyall instantly raised his arms to shield his face before Lupin whirled around to face completely away from Newt.

Only when Mr. Scamander steadily lowered the tip of his wand, letting his wand arm fall limply to his side did Lyall slowly turn back around to regard his mentor, though not before shooting Newt a rather pointed and annoyed look.

Once again, Lyall thought bitterly, his heart ached, only this time there was an added layer of salt on top of his already tender heart, and recollecting on how Hope had looked at him, such unbridled fear and shock and terror in her dark chocolate brown eyes sent a wave of regret through his heartstrings.

That was…not how he would have chosen to reveal the truth to Hope, in a moment of anger as he had.

It took Lupin a few minutes to move, to bring himself to brave the strain on his lonesome soul, but instead, he knew that he could not dwell upon the heartache or the same, and just looking at Newt's face should have been more than enough for him to see it.

Regardless of the pain, it caused him, Lyall was still having a hard time accepting that it had happened. He had told Hope Howell the truth, and she had reacted rather poorly.

He could not change it, and he knew that he was doomed to never know the blessings of what perhaps might have been a beautiful friendship, or perhaps, dare Lyall to bring himself to think this next part, maybe…maybe even _love_.

Lyall's hazel eyes widened as he quickly realized what he was doing to himself, his chest swelling and constricting, rendering the poor man feeling very near hysterics at this point. With that reality fueling him, Lupin finally exhaled a shaking breath and willed himself to take a few more steps forward until he had caught up to where Newt was standing, waiting patiently like a polite older wizard, waiting for Lyall to speak about whatever was bothering his mind.

"Are you all right, Lupin?" Newt asked kindly, his voice harboring no hint of judgment or blame towards his protégé, which almost made Lyall's guilt in his chest tighten even more, causing the flustered younger wizard to down-cast his eyes and instead look towards the pile of fallen leaves at their feet as the pair of wizards began wandering the forest in search for the man who had tried to attack Hope earlier.

"Y—no," Lyall answered immediately, a little too quickly for his liking, feeling his cheeks start to burn as he actively averted his gaze. He had previously had all that he wanted to say planned out in his mind to ask Newt for his advice on how to approach making amends with Miss Howell, but the moment he felt the burn of Newt's piercing stare, his tongue immediately felt thick, like heavy clay in his mouth.

"I do beg your pardon?" Newt prodded kindly, seeming to pick up on the younger man's initial hesitance, and decided perhaps it was best to put Lyall out of his misery and coax the younger wizard into saying what he wanted. "You're wanting to know what to say to her when we get back?" he questioned, looking towards Lyall with raised eyebrows, a look of alarm on his face as he looked at him.

Lupin mutely nodded, not sure what else to say to Newt. He took a deep breath to steady himself as he looked about the Welsh forest, his eyes making a quick scan of the woods. No sign of the stranger from earlier, which worried him.

What if he'd already regained consciousness and had Disapparated, if he did happen to be a wizard, though Newt had rummaged through the man's coat pockets earlier and hadn't been able to find any wand on him.

"Lyall?" came Newt's voice, effectively pulling Lyall from the momentary distraction of his thoughts about that—that brute, who'd so savagely tried to torture Hope for information, and would have done so much worse to her had Newt not arrived on the scene precisely when he had.

Lyall's head jerked sharply upwards to look at his mentor, and the younger man couldn't help the surge of affection that coursed through his bloodstream and into his heart for the older wizard standing in front of him. Newt was looking at Lupin with a look of deep concern and worry.

His brow creased as his grip tightened on his wand handle. It was no wonder Mr. Scamander worried for him.

He had saved a young Muggle woman's life from unspeakable torment, only to be thanked for it by causing her to completely lose her composure and have a breakdown in front of him, reacting poorly to his truth.

How exactly was he supposed to feel after something like that? It was even more disconcerting that Lyall's only emotions he could seem to focus on was anger and rage.

When Lyall did not immediately respond, Newt tried again. "Lyall?" his quiet voice came again, and this time, just a brief hint of unease broke through the calm tone of the man's normally quiet and rather thoughtful voice.

"No, Newt, I—I'm not," Lyall whispered in a hoarse voice as he shook his head, his gaze fixated on the tree line in front of them as the pair of wizards made their way slowly through the forest, their eyes constantly looking to the left and right for any sign of the stranger in the woods, of Hope's attacker.

Again, the men were silent for several minutes. Lyall's jaw tensed until he could stand the silence between them no longer. "Newt, you—you _saw_ how Hope looked at me."

Newt's face fell, though he nodded deliberately in understanding, recognizing that, in just a short amount of time, just as his Tina had once done to him all those years ago on the streets of New York following that mix-up with his briefcase accidentally getting swapped out with Jacob's, that the young brunette Muggle woman back home was having a profound effect on the Ministry employee, whether or not Lyall was yet made aware of it, Newt didn't know for sure.

Only time itself would be that judge of it. Lyall offered Newt a small, weak smile, though both men knew it was strained and not at all a genuine smile from him. They could see it did not reach the man's brown eyes.

"Then why don't you get Miss Howell to look again?" the older wizard prodded gently, his gaze unabashed as Lyall looked up somewhat sternly at his colleague and friend, holding Newt captive in his hardened stare that was pained.

Lyall furrowed his brows into a frown that deepened, causing the corners of his mouth to turn down into a groove, creating lines upon his previously smooth forehead.

He doubted he could even work up the courage to face Hope again, let alone get her to see that he was not a bad man. Lyall knew what others at the Ministry, and in the wizarding community in general, saw whenever they looked at him.

They happened to see a clever wizard in his thirtieth year, a strong, sensitive, caring young man who happened to be more comfortable in dealing with many manners of Dark creatures like boggarts and Dementors than around women.

It had taken him several years to come to terms with this fact about himself, and Lyall had long since stopped trying to change other peoples' perceptions of him.

Hope Howell, the beautiful girl with the wonderful laugh…she deserved better than him. Lyall let out a tired sigh, though his attention was caught by the sound of a faint crunch of a twig and leaf underfoot. He startled, whirling around to his left, his wand at the ready, poised to attack, and let out a shaking breath of relief when it was only Newt.

The older man was a few paces in front of him, kneeling into a low crouch to get a better look at the indentation of what looked to Lyall like a boot print, he realized with a heavy heart as the damned corded muscle gave a painful little lurch. It was not his or Newt's footprint, which meant it could only belong to…to _him_.

"Whoever he was, the man from earlier went this way, Lyall, we have to hurry if we want to catch up to him. For all we know, he might have already Disapparated," Newt murmured, lowering his voice as his usual kind and tranquil face went a little bit slack in surprise as he raised his hand not clutching onto his wand, pointing towards the northeast, just a little bit further. "Be _careful_ , Lyall," he warned, heaving a soft groan as he forced himself to his feet, staggering a bit as he righted his posture, reaching out for a groping tree limb nearby to steady himself, only for Lupin to shot forward and latch onto his arm to help him. "Thank you." He shot a disgruntled look towards the ground before looking down at his own two feet. "That would have been a nasty fall. Guess it's a good thing you were here."

Newt let out a sigh and looked towards Lyall, a rather stern look on his lined, weathered features. "I don't know what happened to Miss Howell tonight, but it's clear to me we need to find this man, and fast. She is certainly welcome to stay with Tina and me for as long as she is in need to, Mr. Lupin, you should know this now, sir."

Lyall blinked before proceeding to lower his head in a somewhat strange bowing manner at his kind, generous offer.

"Th—thank you, Newt, thank you, but I was planning on taking her home in the morning if she's feeling well enough. I—I don't want her stressed out by all of this. What h-happened to her is more than enough," he stammered, hoping he didn't misunderstand his meaning.

Lyall parted his lips open slightly to speak when yet again, the sound of the crunching of leaves underfoot caught his attention and caused his hearing to perk up at the noise.

Whirling around on his heels, both his and Newt's wands raised steadily, Lyall felt a cold chill of fear waft up and down his spine and to his toes as once more, for the second time in one night, he found himself face-to-face with the burly wizard that had tried to brutally attack Miss Howell.

Lyall drew in a sharp breath that pained his lungs, though before he could react, Newt let out a barely audible grunt and quickly shoved Lyall behind the trunk of an elm tree.

"Wh—what? Merlin's Beard, it's _him_ , I'll—I'll _kill_ him!" he stammered, gnashing his teeth somewhat defensively as a surge of anger coursed through his veins, remembering hearing Hope's desperate scream, feeling Newt stiffen beside him in anger, though as Lyall made to step back out from behind the tree behind which Newt had unceremoniously shoved him, reacting quickly and with lightning speed, more speed than Lyall thought capable of the old wizard, Newt drew himself back behind the trunk of the tree alongside Lyall.

Newt took hold of Lupin's forearms, pressing him hard against the wide bough of the tree that concealed both their slender forms from the other wizard's approaching form. He prevented him from escaping.

" _No_ , Lupin!" He hissed down at him, trying to keep his voice from drawing any attention and giving away his and Lupin's location to the Dark wizard. "Charging out there half-cocked and angry will _not_ help Miss Howell, Lyall. You'll only make matters worse for her. Let _me_ handle it."

_Quiet_ , his eyes seemed to say, as the aging sixty-two-year-old wizard shot Lupin a pointed look with his green eyes.

Lupin narrowed his eyes and glared up at Newt, which in it of itself was rather intimidating, Newt thought, but Scamander knew he was not about to be phased by his protégé's aggression and sometimes volatile temper. His light hazel eyes flashed with emotion that Newt couldn't place. Anger? Concern? Desperation? Pride? What was it?!

"Newt, I can't just stand out here and do _nothing_!" he growled lightly, his voice practically trembling with emotion. Which, Newt was not entirely sure, nor did his mind have time to ponder it, as his ears perked up at the sound of the hulking stranger stalking his way forward. "She—she tried to risk her life by—by luring him away! I can't just—" he started to protest, but Newt cut him off.

"Just _what_?!" the older wizard retorted in hushed tones, his voice clipped and sharp. "Risk your life in return for hers, Mr. Lupin? Then what will become of all this, Lyall? It will just be a consistent, tiresome cycle of rescue and sacrifice. Do you think Miss Howell wants that for you, Lupin? In any case…you should allow me to handle it. I do not think the man knows you, therefore you have the advantage of surprise on your side, my friend, but me," he paused, not wanting to finish his statement, but knew he had to. Newt sighed, closing his eyes for a moment before speaking again. " _Me_ , he will find I am _not_ so easily swayed by intimidation and his _threats_ ," he growled in a low voice.

Newt allowed his voice to trail off as an idea suddenly came to her. It was somewhat reckless and rather dangerous, but it was nothing he knew he couldn't handle.

"Lyall?" This time, the older wizard's voice was stronger, firmer, laced with just a hint of steel that told Lyall he must listen. "I want you to promise me something, my friend."

The simple statement was just enough to throw the younger wizard off guard and distract Lupin for a moment, but just in case, Newt kept his pressure firm on the man's forearms, not wanting to relinquish his grip until he received sworn word from Lyall to make good on his word.

"Wh—what is it?" Lyall replied, his voice now returning to its normal, gentle pitch, and thank Merlin for that.

However, a hint of questioning and confusion lingered within. Newt nodded slowly and took in a deep breath.

"Don't you dare move from this spot. _Stay_ _here_ and promise me that you will not leave the shadows, my friend," he begged, imploring the man, and hoping Lupin would listen to him. He had his own reasons for doing this.

Lyall felt his brown eyes widen at the aging wizard's solemn and piercing gaze. Newt Scamander's green eyes burned with a fiery intensity, the likes of which he had not seen in the Magizoologist before.

A look that immediately made Lupin, and he was a man who did not scare easily, want to shrink away from the hard gaze Newt was giving him. However, considering his back was pressed firmly against the trunk of the tree, the bark digging into the material of his sweater and pricking at his back, he could not pull away from Newt's surprisingly strong grip, surprising for a man of his age and physical condition.

"I…I promise," Lyall begrudgingly agreed, though the hint of displeasure that had seeped its way to the surface of Lyall's quiet and reserved tone was evident to old Newt.

Newt nodded silently by way of response. Good. The man had promised him, now the time had come to see if Mr. Lupin respected him enough to honor his wishes. Newt closed his eyes for a moment, exhaling through his nose, and then softly and slowly moved away from the old tree.

The surge of panic that constricted Lyall's throat and almost rendering him unable to breathe was utterly overwhelming. Lyall resisted the urge to seize on tufts of his light brown hair and scream in protest at this very idea.

But it was already too late. His heart sank to the pit of his stomach as he heard this man, this Dark wizard, let out a deep, low rumbling growl from deep within his burly chest.

Lyall was unable to repress the violent shiver that clawed its way down his spine and pricked its way into his heart.

Questions attacked his mind, but Mr. Scamander shot him another admonishing, if not slightly scathing look, silently warning Lyall not to intervene or step out from behind his hiding place. As slowly and as cautiously as he could, Lyall carefully peeked out from behind the corner, drawing in a breath of frigid cold air that caused him to let out a hiss.

" _You_ ," the hulking stranger sneered, the corner of his lip curling upwards as if the brutish fiend smelled something rotten, eyeballing Newt as if the old wizard were little more than a piece of dirt or a pebble stuck to the bottom of his shoe. "You were the wizard who attacked me earlier, weren't you, Mr. Scamander?"

The man's hairy face darkened as if a shadow had suddenly fallen over him.

"Why?" Without waiting for Newt to answer, he looked around to the left and right with an amused smirk and a curt nod of his head as he turned his sharp gaze back towards Newt. "What happened that truly _delish_ looking girl, Scamander? The poor little dove was a liability in these dark woods all _alone_ ," here, he mockingly pretended to shiver. He stuck out his lip in a pout, feigning a hurt look. "Why on _earth_ did you send the pretty little thing away?"

Newt simply proceeded to brush his hands on the front of his favorite bright blue coat and let out what sounded to Lyall like a tired sounding sigh. "Do I _know_ you, sir?" he asked pleasantly in a tone that Lyall felt this cretin did not deserve, though Newt was unfailingly polite, even to those in this world who Lupin felt did not deserve it. Like _him_.

The stranger let out a noise that sounded like a cross between a grunt and a snort as he rolled his eyes at Newt, not providing him with an answer as to what his name was.

"Would have been easier on the girl if she would have just told me she was traveling with Ministry _scum_ ," Here, the man spat the last two words as though it were poison on his tongue. "I don't know what the little dove thought it was such a big secret. I know who you _are_ , Scamander. Only you could love a _beast_ ," he said, baring sharp teeth.

His piercing eyes of blue drifted downward until they settled upon Newt's wand, raised only slightly, not quite at his chest.

"Lay down your wand, Scamander, and maybe I'll _think_ about _not_ killing you," he snapped in a voice devoid of any kind of emotion other than a sickening sadistic glee at the thought of causing hurt and pain to other people.

Newt shook his head as he glowered at the taller stranger. There was no way on Merlin's green earth he would ever relinquish control of his wand. He knew better than to hope this wizard, whoever he was, was capable of anything other than malice. And of course, the offer the man had given, even if it were sincere, was simply not good enough.

Newt was not about to give the man a chance to escape. He needed to be brought into the Ministry for questioning.

Newt Scamander was a kind man, and a loyal friend to those he cared for, and if there was one thing the aging wizard did not tolerate, was violence against his friends.

Though he hardly knew Miss Howell, for that matter, it was enough that he could tell Lyall was growing to care for the girl. Considering Lyall was something of his unofficial protégé at the Ministry of Magic, that, in Newt's mind, made Miss Howell his friend now, too. And Newt was a man who stood by his friends and swore to protect them.

More to the point, besides, Newt did not think himself a man capable of forgiving such heinous acts, especially against a poor, helpless woman wandering alone, lost in the woods, and a young Muggle at that, incapable of using magic or really any other means to try to protect herself.

Newt made an odd little sniffing noise as he looked at the man across the forest clearing in disapproval. "If this woman you are so intent on finding is in fact, still in this area, you will not touch her sir, for she is now under _my_ protection, sir," he answered in a clipped and cold tone.

The other man let out a low, warning growl from deep within his throat, immediately plunging a curled, hairy claw into the pocket of his black coat and drew his own crude-looking wand and parried Newt's Stunning Spell he'd sent.

Newt wordlessly waved his wand again, managing to slice a shallow, superficial looking gash in the other man's broad chest as it attempted to dodge Newt's rain of jinxes he was hurling down on the man like kingdom come. Lyall could only watch, standing rooted and transfixed to his spot. Lyall doubted he could move out from behind the tree right now even if he wanted to, the spells were passing so quickly it became hard to keep up with what was happening.

The larger wizard hissed in pain and swung back, sending what looked like a well-aimed Stinging Jinx in Newt's direction, a merciless, heavy blow that narrowly missed Newt's shoulder. The spell would have hit its intended target, had Scamander not dodged out of the way at the last possible second, though unfortunately, Lyall chose that exact moment to summon his strength to move again and leaped out from behind the tree, his own wand drawn, eager to assist his mentor in whatever way he could. He let out a startled cry of pain as the Stinging Jinx hit his right eye.

" _Lupin_!" Newt cried out in both fear and annoyance at the younger wizard's attempt to intervene, but Lyall couldn't hear him well enough. His mentor's voice sounded muffled, faint, as though the older man were trying to speak to him via a Bubble-Head Charm from underwater, and Lyall was the one stuck on dry land.

A horrible ringing filled his fatigued eardrums. His legs felt shaky like he had been hit with a full-bind Jelly Legs Curse and could not support his body weight as he felt himself drop to his knees, yet his head was the only thing that felt rather heavy. It _hurt_.

He arched his back as the pain of the stranger's Stinging Jinx he'd hit him with was rushing through his face like an igniting fire. His eyes squeezed closed as his face contorted.

Never had Lyall experienced such horrible pain in his life, this was the first time in his life the thirty-year-old wizard had been on the receiving end of a Stinging Jinx.

Lyall could feel his head spinning ultimately as the skin near his left eye and browbone rapidly started to swell. His jaw clenched tightly shut, molars grinding, Lyall fumbled and dropped his wand, grabbing a fistful of his hair and pulling on it in thick tufts helped to ease the pain a little.

Slowly, the pain faded, his hand released his brown locks, trembling with anger at not having faster reflexes and allowing himself to get hit in such a vulnerable, open position, and a slight twinge of fear upon hearing the collective yells of both the stranger and his friend, and not being able to discern for himself what was going on around.

Sweat trickled down his back and the front and sides of his temples as his breathing slowly went back to normal.

Newt, unbeknownst to Lyall, as Lupin's vision was still struggling to return to normal and rid itself of the black spots dancing at the edges of his vision and threatening to blind him, was struggling. Newt gritted his teeth as he aimed a Full-Body-Bind Curse at the hulking man again.

But it was such a heavy, wide blow that Newt's jinx swung well past the stranger dressed entirely in black, which gave Newt a much-needed window of opportunity. While his opponent was distracted, Newt finally saw the chance he needed.

Quickly, he raised his wand and pointed it squarely at the man's broad and burly, hairy chest, though just before the spell could reach its intended target, the man's quick reflexes sprung into motion. He turned on the heel of his black leather boot and with a loud, resounding _crack_! reverberated through the forest, Disapparated.

Breathing out a tired, frustrated, but ultimately relieved breath, Newt glowered with narrowed eyes at the precise spot where the towering, intimidating stranger had vanished, before tearing his gaze away from the location and returning his attention back towards his protégé.

Lupin was struggling to get to his feet and see, the area above his browbone now rather a painful-looking, swollen contusion, rendering the poor chap almost unrecognizable, tainting his otherwise handsome features into something truly hideous.

"Mr. Lupin?" Newt asked in a soft voice, not quite sure how to react, hoping his voice sounded and remained calm as he gingerly approached Lyall's position where he stood with an arm outstretched. He was sure the man's temper was threatening to implode.

Not only had Lupin bit hit with a truly nasty-looking Stinging Jinx, but they had failed in their objective to locate said stranger and incapacitate him.

He was _gone_. Escaped. And he was definitely a bigger problem the two of them would have to deal with later on.

Newt bounded forward on his heels and shot out an arm that he latched his fingers around Lyall Lupin's forearm.

The older wizard closed his eyes and let out a shaking breath. It made him so angry to think of the stranger hurting the poor, defenseless Muggle woman who would be spending the night under his roof, and now his protégé, too!

The brutish fiend had absolutely no other reason for it beyond the fact that he seemed like the type who enjoyed inflicting pain and torture upon weaker individuals and watching them suffer for it, relishing in hearing the screams.

Newt continued moving his hand upward from Lyall's arm, reaching out with the pad of his fingers to gingerly inspect the contusion over Lyall's browbone.

He took another steadying breath, for he could not allow his anger that their would-be-captive had escaped to prevent him from doing what really mattered, and right now, ensuring Lyall wasn't injured further was his priority.

Though the moment the pad of his fingers just barely grazed over the surface of the rather large-looking contusion that had caused Lyall's face to rapidly swell, Lupin let out a pained whimper and jerked away rather violently from Newt's grip. "No…don't _touch_ me," he gasped in a small, heartbreaking voice as he scrambled away from Newt.

The famed aging Magizoologist soon found himself staring back with widened eyes at the younger wizard, whose wide, terror-filled eyes, well, the one good eye he could still see out of that hadn't been affected by the Stinging Jinx, back at him. For a moment, it seemed as though Lyall couldn't quite make out what it was that he was looking at through his hazy and quite lopsided vision.

The poor young man was looking beside himself with anger, rage, and just a brief flicker of fear, little more than a shadow, but it darted across his pale features, nonetheless.

"Don't touch me!" Lupin hollered in a shaking, weakened voice as he shakily raised his wand, pointing it squarely at Newt's chest, as though preparing to fend Scamander off.

Newt froze, raising his wandless hands up in front of him in a show of surrender, furrowing his brows into a frown. The younger wizard did not seem to have a grasp on what he was seeing, just who it was that he was talking to. Perhaps his eyes had not yet adjusted from the worst effects of the jinx, and as a result, was impairing his vision.

Mr. Scamander cautiously took two half-steps forward, still keeping his arms raised to show Lyall he meant no harm. "Lyall, it's _me_. It's Newt," Newt spoke up in a collected, steady voice, even though he felt anything but.

In fact, he was quite furious, not at Lupin, of course, but at the fact that the brutish fiend who preyed on innocent young women had escaped their grasp and was now loose.

He wanted to reach out his hand and offer some form of physical comfort to his protégé, but in no way did he want to scare Lyall further, so he kept his distance and continued speaking reassuring words. "He—he got _away_ , Lyall. I—I'm _sorry_. But we'll deal with him later. He _won't_ hurt you or Miss Howell anymore, not if _I_ can help it, Mr. Lupin."

"N—Newt?" Lyall managed to gasp out in an uncertain voice, before practically staggering forward, and would have likely fallen flat on his face if Newt hadn't shot forward and wound one of his arms around Lupin's shoulders, heaving a small groan as he helped the younger wizard right himself.

"It's all right, Lupin," Newt murmured soothingly, patting the younger wizard on the back, involuntarily flinching the moment Lyall lifted his chin, jutting out slightly in order to meet Newt's gaze.

By Merlin, the contusion over his browbone was…something else, and not in a good way. He swallowed thickly down hard past the lump in his throat, before affectionately giving his arm a pat.

"Are you well enough to walk, my friend? That is to say, do you think you could hold onto my arm long enough for me to escort you back home? There's nothing to do for that Stinging Jinx but wait for it to wear off, I'm afraid," he murmured apologetically, flinching as he noticed Lupin's face darken.

There was a strain in Newt's voice. Lyall fell silent, able to suggest that Newt Scamander was a bit shaken up by having to duel the stranger that had now attacked all three of them in the span of one night, however, he hid it well.

"Hope," Lyall croaked out hoarsely, ghosting his fingers along with the worst of his bruises, cuts, and the horrible, huge wart that was now covering his right eye. "She'll _see_ me."

Newt clucked his tongue and shook his head. "Somehow, I don't think Miss Howell will be put off by… _that_ ," he mumbled, wildly gesticulating with his hands to Lyall's face. "Your fears of what the young woman thinks of you are unfounded, my friend. You needn't fear anything from her. I think that…" He paused to scratch at an itch behind his ear, as much as to give himself time to think. "She likes you," he said at last. "And that you ought to apologize. Come." Newt broke away from Lyall's grip for a split second, just long enough to steady himself, holding his arm out for Lyall to take. "I'm sure the others are worried about us. Let's go home," he managed to speak in a quiet voice.

Lyall's stomach sank as it dawned on him that no matter what, he was going to have to go back there and face Hope.

Lupin crossed his arms over his chest to shield himself from the guilt that suddenly assailed her, and he could only hope that once Hope caught a glimpse of what the Stinging Jinx had done to his face, that she'd not be put off by it, as strange as it might make him look, hideous as it now was.

He tightened his arms and looked away from Newt, who he could swear was looking rather disappointed in Lyall.

Lyall heaved a heavy sigh and at last turned towards Newt, though he had great difficulty in meeting his eyes.

"All right, Newt, you win. Let's—let's go home, then. You're right. I do Miss Howell an apology. Better sooner rather than later," he said, at last, taking a deep, shaky breath to steady himself, and he wound his fingers around Newt's arm to allow the man to escort him back to his home via Side-Along Apparition, as Lyall didn't trust himself to do.

Lupin slowly closed his eyes as Newt nodded his agreement, feeling the wind tousle his bangs off his forehead as Newt and Lyall turned on their heels and Disapparated. He knew that the moment they stepped foot inside through Newt and Tina's home, he would have to go apologize to the young brunette Muggle woman whose life he had saved tonight and could only pray she'd accept his apology.

He could only hope.


	16. Will You Stay with Me?

**16**

**LYALL** could not quell the queasiness that churned in the pit of his stomach the moment he and Newt set foot inside.

The fear as he cautiously crept his way down the hallway towards Newt's spare bedroom he'd so graciously put Hope up in for the night, threatened to engulf him entirely.

Lyall was a man who'd taken more than a few life-changing chances in the past, but at this moment as he stood outside the door…he was afraid to take another.

Though, before he could lose his nerves, he steeled himself and raised his knuckles to knock, unable to shake the sense of dread from his senses, how this was truly an awful, terrible, _bad_ idea, to let Hope see him again, especially like this.

He was grateful, at the very least, there was no mirror in this hallway that he could look into to see the worst effects of the Stinging Jinx the man hit him with.

Exhaling a shaking breath through his nose, Lupin raised his knuckles and gingerly knocked on the door.

He felt his cheeks turn hot and his stomach flutter and Lupin forced himself to swallow down hard past the lump in his throat. It was late, well past midnight by this point, and there was a strong chance that Hope might be asleep.

Lupin found he almost would prefer that to be the case, for, in another few hours, this damned Stinging Jinx would wear off, and his face would be returned to normal then.

He had no way of knowing if Hope were asleep by now and he was disturbing her rest, or if she were awake and worried over wondering whether or not he would return.

His heartbeat, now little more than a throbbing mass of corded muscle as horrible visions of how Miss Howell would react to see his mangled face looking like this, flitted in the forefront of his mind, torturing the poor man until Lyall thought he could hardly bear it.

The tiny prick of uneasiness grew, winding its way through his churning stomach and further up into his throat in the form of bile. It felt awkward and unsettling to be calling upon Hope for reassurance and comfort in the middle of the night, yet he found himself pushing it away, lest he loses his courage.

Yet, he needed the reassurance, if it was only but to see her face again, even if Miss Howell was fast asleep right now. Yes, that alone would be more than enough, he knew.

Though the moment his knuckles nearly contacted the wood of the door in order to knock to announce his presence, a tiny sound, muffled and faint, though it was, it was a sound he had become familiar with all too well tonight, in just the span of a few short hours, he knew Miss Howell's voice, he thought he would recognize it anywhere.

Quietly, and as gingerly as he could, his left hand curled into a fist as he twisted the brass doorknob, the door giving a faint creak as it swung open, and Lyall peered inside of it.

As soft light from the hallway light above his head was the only light to emanate and spill its way across Newt and Tina's tiny little spare bedroom, the cut of his figure now the only darkness to mar it, Lyall found Hope's bed in a true state of disarray. The blankets were tossed about in almost violent twists.

She'd been thrashing in her sleep, from the looks of things. Her wavy dark chocolate locks were thoroughly disheveled from her restless slumber, flying about her face haphazardly, spilling across the pillow.

Her small, bandaged hands clutched desperately at what bed sheets she could still reach with violently shaking fingers. Yet, it was her face that shattered Lupin's heart.

Hope's face was twisted and contorted with fear as tears poured relentlessly from her lids that were squeezed tightly shut, as though Miss Howell was afraid to open her eyes, flowing across her pale cheeks and down the gentle slope of her temple. The delicate skin of Hope's brow was pulled firm and taut across the bone in her greatly disturbed slumber, her expression wrought with a horrible potent mixture of pain, horror, and heart-brokenness that broke Lyall's heart.

A sure result of secret dreams he could not glimpse for himself. Her breaths hitched and caught in her throat in uneven intervals, sending violent, wracking sobs along her slender, bruised frame, and pitiful mewls of fear and denial tumbled from her shaking lips as she thrashed in her sleep.

A single word found its way into the air of the bedroom, pleading with an unknown force, but it was enough to render Lupin speechless, his eyes widening in shock.

His name. Hearing it tumble from her lips, to hear Hope speak it in such an agonizing, crushing tone was the final straw that very nearly caused his own heart to cry out.

He leaned forward with the utmost caution and rested the back of his hand along her cheek, wiping away a tear.

Hope flinched away violently, her dark chocolate eyes flew open wide in fright and alarm, and a hoarse scream on her lips. Her clothes, a tangled mess on her body, both from the thrashing in her sleep while she suffered through some unseen nightmare, as well as from her sudden movement, slid off her left shoulder to expose the pale skin underneath, and Lyall flinched and ducked his head in shame, thinking that he had no right to see her in this way.

Lyall turned his head to the side so she could only make out his shadowy profile, hoping he'd not seen the worst effects of that stranger's Stinging Jinx, though he knew it was only a matter of time, and there was a large part of his mind that feared what she would think of him when she laid eyes upon it if she would think him to be a monster.

Hope's breast rose and fell in rapid succession, her breaths catching in her throat now even worse than before.

She sat there, her curly hair disheveled and askew, amidst a sea of rumpled heated blankets and sewn quilts.

His calloused hand hovered still on her cheek, though Lyall could not summon the strength to move away from Hope. "Y—you were _dreaming_ , Hope. A nightmare," he offered quietly, forcing his eyes away from Hope's figure.

A wave of guilt-wracked his form as his trepidation returned in full force and he was reminded yet again how forward and perhaps inappropriate Lyall had been in coming to check up on her this late at night after the rough night that she had. What Hope needed now most was _sleep_.

And he was depriving her of that. He'd woken her up. Silence filled the night air, hanging like a weighted curtain between the two of them, though neither one spoke at all.

Hope merely blinked at him, once, twice, three times, but made no move to heave herself up over the mattress's edge towards where Lyall stood or his hand, staring owlishly instead at the figure there standing in front of her.

Lyall cringed, feeling guilty for having come and woken her, especially with his face still swollen from being hit.

Yet, after several moments of the awkward silence lingering between the two new acquaintances, with neither one wanting to be the first to break the silence, and of no positive sign from Miss Howell that she wished for Lupin to stick around, he turned on his heels to go and made to remove himself from her bedroom, thinking that he'd been a blind and bloody fool in coming, and to let Hope sleep.

Though the moment he turned his back on the young brunette Muggle woman, there was the fluttering of what sounded like the rest of her bedsheets haphazardly being kicked off Newt and Tina's spare bed, and a muffled grunt of surprise. Lyall paused, turning around, shifting at the waist slightly just in the nick of time to see Hope Howell scramble across her mattress, only to fall to one side, due to the twisted, disheveled state of her clothing, caught in the bedsheets.

Lyall immediately launched forward in Hope's direction, offering his hand outstretched to her in help. Hope stretched out her left hand and latched onto Lyall's hand quickly, using it as leverage to pull herself upright and then blindly launched herself at Lyall's chest.

"Don't leave," she whispered desperately against the column of Lupin's throat. She nestled further into him, her small arms wrapping tightly around his middle, fearful. "I—I'm sorry for how I reacted earlier, Mr. Lupin, i—it's just that…this is all a lot to process, magic being real," she breathed, as though she was still having trouble believing it herself. He watched, awestruck, as Hope's dark chocolate eyes widened and she gave her head a shake, a brown curl tumbling in front of her face as she did so. "But…I—I really _do_ like you, Lyall. I like you a lot, and…I—I don't want to hurt you. I—I'm sorry, Lupin, for earlier. Will you…will you forgive me, Lyall? Can we start over?"

She hesitated, pulling back slightly to study his face. She winced.

Lyall flinched, but only because Hope did so the moment her shaking hand reached up to allow the pads of her fingertips to just barely graze along with the horrible contusion along his brow, her brows furrowed in fear.

Hope paused for a moment, processing the man's sudden resistance to being touched. She moved slowly, feeling for any kind of resistance as her hands grazed along the surface of his face, her eyes widening at seeing his face.

His eyes slowly opened, and then locked with Hope's own, the intensity of his light hazel stare almost making her blush. She blinked, and then in the darkness of her bedroom, Hope's eyes slowly adjusted to the rest of his face. The first moment was shocking, she admitted, though his face quickly averted from her as Lyall looked to the floor.

He did not want to look into Miss Howell's eyes and see the shock and the fear.

Lupin could hear Hope hitch in a nervous breath and he desperately fought against the urge to turn on the heels of his shoes and quit the bedroom as soon as possible, thinking that the young Muggle girl had suffered enough, and the wisest thing for him to do would be to go, but Hope had practically _begged_ Lyall not to go.

Hope let out a hiss of breath as her eyes wandered the length of his face that had been affected by the Stinging Jinx.

"What on earth…" she whispered, horrified. "Wh—what _happened_ to you?" This was unlike anything she had ever seen before in her face. Hope _tried_ not to stare at Lyall Lupin's face, she really _did_.

But considering his handsome face had been ordinary several hours ago, and now this, well, it was hard for her not to, and she hoped he didn't blame her. Part of his forehead was jutting out over his right eye, his nose had gone exceedingly large and rather misshapen, and Lyall's left eye was practically swollen shut.

The intensity of Hope Howell's stare burned Lyall, seared his skin, and the young Ministry employee and Non-Spiritous Apparitions expert feared at any moment he'd be reduced to nothing more than ash with how Hope stared.

Lyall didn't know how long he stood there, rooted to his spot in front of the young brunette Muggle woman, completely unable to move at all. He hadn't stopped looking at the hardwood floor beneath his shoes and he didn't plan to.

Hope hadn't run from the bedroom screaming in terror, for Newt or Tina to help save her, but he figured it was only a matter of time before it happened.

She was merely frozen in fear. It was the only plausible explanation for why Hope Howell hadn't run away yet… But then… that moment for him never came, and Lupin very nearly jumped out of his skin when Hope spoke up.

"D—does…does it _hurt_ you?" she breathed, Hope's innocent question drifting through the air like a lullaby.

Lyall froze, feeling his breaths catch in his throat, unable to help but to bring his eyes up to meet her questioning gaze. There was fear at the sudden change in his appearance, as Lupin had anticipated there would be, but also something else, something that Lyall didn't recognize.

What on earth did she mean, 'did it _hurt_ him?' Did it _hurt_ him that he'd allowed that stranger in the woods to get one over on him, that he had been so preoccupied with thoughts of keeping Hope safe and returning back here in one piece to try to make amends that he'd neglected his own safety, and more to the point, that of Newt's as well?

Hope sensed Lupin's confusion and swallowed down hard past a growing lump in her throat and pointed. "I—I mean your…your…your _face_ , Lyall," she whispered softly.

Yes, it did give a painful little twinge every couple of minutes, but another half hour or so, and Lupin felt confident the jinx would wear off, and his face would once again be returned to normal, and he'd no longer frighten her. He could only hope so.

"N—no…" he began nervously, painfully wringing his hands together out of a horrible warm nervousness that seeped into his chest as a fiery warmth, warming his chest and spreading to his cheeks, flushing them high with color. "Only if it hurts you to _see_ it, Miss Howell. It's only a Stinging Jinx. It will be gone in the next half hour or so. Forgive me, I—I shouldn't have come to see you. I—I don't know _what_ I was thinking," he croaked, dropping his gaze to the floor.

But much to his complete and utter astonishment, Lyall was taken aback and caught off his guard when a cool and soft, creamy hand gently touched his cheek and tilted his face back up, forcing Lyall to look into Hope's dark eyes.

Hope's dark eyes like rich, pure chocolate were still wide, but Lyall could detect not a hint of fear in him as they poured over every detail of his face, before settling on his eyes and locking his gaze with hers.

"It doesn't," Hope whispered shyly with a little white smile before blushing.

Lupin blinked owlishly at her, unable to believe what he was hearing. It was truly something he could not put into words, indescribable, the wave of emotion and relief that washed over his bruised body.

The tide that carried him out into the sea, a sea of, well, Hope, and promise.

Hope _saw_ him, saw his face, the result of the man's Stinging Jinx, what he had done to her. She had processed the fact that he was a wizard, and she had not run away nor dismissed him.

She was right _here_ , in front of him. Hope was right here. Bruised. One-eyed, until his vision returned to him, that is, and very much a pure-blooded wizard, and Hope _stayed_.

To her, it didn't seem to matter, and it was more than Lyall could bear as Hope gingerly pulled her hand away from his face, Lupin felt an overwhelming urge to catch her hand before she could retreat back within herself, to grasp it within his own and kiss her knuckles in gratitude. But he managed to refrain himself from doing it.

Instead, Lyall felt the last of his strength leave his body, sapped of energy, as he fell to his knees in front of Hope Howell as a heavy burden was suddenly lifted from his heart and shoulders.

All of the emotion from the taxing events of a single night was proving to be entirely too much for Lupin to comprehend, and for the first time in his adult life, the pressure of his shame at what he was left Lyall's chest.

Hope's eyes widened in shock and surprise. It took all of her willpower not to back up several steps the moment Lyall fell to his knees in front of her. It had been unexpected of him and she was still quite a bit on edge. Her mind felt like it was reeling. Everything made sense to her now. All of it. The fact that he had been so close by in the woods, as a…a wizard, he must have sensed her presence somehow, and he'd not wanted to reveal that fact to her until he was ready. It was perhaps why he was so shy.

And whatever another wizard had done to his face when he and Mr. Scamander had left his home to search for the man in the woods that had tried to attack her earlier tonight, why he'd not wanted her to see his face.

It was out of shame. Yes, while it was true, the first few moments of when her eyes had adjusted to the darkness upon waking up and seeing Lyall's slim, towering silhouette standing in front of her bed, and she'd seen his swollen face, the horrible contusion over his browbone was a bit of a shock.

And his light hazel eyes felt so much fear, so much pain, fear that she would turn him away again and reject Lupin.

Hope was quite sure she'd never seen anything like it before. The tormented intensity, and yet, at the same time, there was a pearl of hidden wisdom deep within the depths of Lyall Lupin's eyes.

Open windows to the young thirty-year-old's heart and soul. Lyall held her gaze only for a split second, but it was long enough for something unspoken to pass between the two of them, a connection to form, of sorts.

A connection Hope knew she had been waiting to form for a very long time. Janey was sure to be ecstatic for her coworker come Monday when Hope told her what happened. Was she frightened of this realization? No.

Did the fact that Lupin was a magical wizard make her think any less of the man who had saved her life, not just once, but twice tonight? Most certainly not. She did not feel disgusted or hatred towards Lupin for what he was, though she could tell by the way he carried himself, the way his head hung in shame, that he believed her to be afraid.

Only overwhelming pity filled Hope's heart as the feeble corded muscle gave a pitiful little quiver as she looked upon the kind man still kneeling on his knees in front of Hope.

Hope felt an intense desire to erase the dark pain that lingered in the man's light hazel eyes as he sanguinely lifted his head, though he still adamantly refused to meet her eyes. She wanted to replace the pain in the man's eyes with a happiness that she felt Mr. Lupin had deprived himself of.

She was not going to allow the fact that the man was a magical wizard with powers of his own to get in the way of the gratitude and appreciation she felt for Lyall and the friendship, and maybe even in time, a relationship, that she wanted with the handsome young man who'd found her lost in the woods tonight and had tried to escort her home.

Without any hesitation, before Hope could lose her courage or resolve, Hope knelt on the floor and placed her hand on the man's forearm, giving it a light, reassuring squeeze.

Hope cringed, not anticipating the obvious flinch and startling jump of surprise Lupin gave from her touch, and Hope almost convinced herself to pull her hand away, though something within her heart fought against this urge.

Lyall, she concluded, was not a man used to being touched by a young woman. After giving the wizard a moment or two to compose himself, Hope gingerly tugged on the sleeve of the man's slightly worn, weathered brown jacket in an attempt to pull the young man up to his feet.

Lupin obeyed her gentle pressure and persuasion without even thinking about it, clumsily rising to a standing position, but still, he was refusing to look Hope in the eye.

That was going to have to change if he still wanted to get that cup of coffee with her over her lunch break on Monday.

"Lyall, _please_ …I—I'm not upset with you, please look at me," Hope pleaded, biting her bottom lip, trying to coax the thirty-year-old wizard into feeling more comfortable around her.

She couldn't explain it, but from what little Jacob had managed to tell her when he'd met Newt Scamander and Tina in New York City all those years ago, was that non-magical beings and No-Maj's or Muggles, were what the wizarding community called people like himself and Hope with no magical abilities in their blood, weren't especially supposed to intermingle, let alone date.

At least, that was how it was in New York, but Hope wasn't sure what their kind's laws here were in Great Britain, much less throughout the rest of Europe itself.

For a moment, a surge of anger welled within her chest at the possibility that their magical government, if Lyall's kind had one here in Great Britain, would impose such a horrible law that would prevent a wizard or witch from dating or marrying someone that wasn't exactly like them.

Though Hope was pulled from her thoughts very slowly, she watched as Lyall raised his light, kind hazel eyes to hers, and this time, the man held her intense stare. Lupin parted his lips open to speak, longing to stay something to her, anything to her, but when he tried, nothing came out.

His lips felt numb and tingling, and it felt to Lupin as though Hope had stolen away his voice. She was, it seemed, not the only one who had been shocked into silence. But Hope continued to smile softly at Lyall in a show of support and held out her outstretched hand for him to take.

" _Stay_ ," she pleaded. Lupin looked, dumbfounded, at Hope's waiting hand for a moment as if unsure what to do.

Slowly and cautiously, as if he were afraid she would somehow just…magically vanish from his line of sight, Lyall exhaled a shaking breath and reached out, taking Hope's hand.

Though her skin was almost cold to the touch, it still felt to him as though a sudden ripple of heat had spasmed its way up his arm at rapid-fire speeds and pricked at his heart, the feeble quivering muscle in his chest, sending it furiously pumping blood to his veins just as it had when he'd first laid eyes upon Hope after rescuing her from her boggart in the Welsh forest earlier tonight.

Feeling as though it would be highly inappropriate and wrong for him to hold onto her hand for too terribly long, Lupin reluctantly dropped the hold he had on Hope's soft hand and let his arms rest awkwardly at his sides again, though he instantly missed the heat her hand gave off.

"Y—you're not…afraid of me?" He finally asked, having regained some small measure of control over his voice, by some miracle of Merlin or God Himself indeed.

Hope quickly shook her head. "Afraid of what, Lyall?" she questioned, with just the slightest hint of a teasing tone to her otherwise sweet voice that was like music to his ears.

Lyall did not bother to stamp down the small, shy smile that graced his features as she made it quite plain that his status as a wizard did not matter to her. Though Lyall couldn't guess for the life of him how that could be, considering the truly horrible night in the woods she'd had.

The look he had given Hope in return was just enough to make her want to throw her arms about his neck and hug the man for daring to have the good graces within himself to accept her apology for her despicable behavior.

It just made everything else not matter as much anymore. His fear of seeing her again after she'd yelled at him, at Hope seeing the Stinging Jinx's effects that mauled his otherwise handsome face…his worry of hurting her…

It was all gone. And in its place, stood Hope, quite literally, as well as figuratively as the fiery warmth of the emotion continued to spread throughout Lyall's chest.

"Y—you should sleep," Lyall murmured softly as she slowly slid herself back underneath the quilted coverings.

"Will you stay with me?" Hope breathed in a faint voice as she smiled and snuggled closer into her soft, satin pillow.

"Yes," he answered without any hesitation on his part.

It was as if all that the expert on boggarts and other apparitions had known had stopped around him and held Lupin captive there for a moment. Even though he'd seen before, it felt as though he had been blinded until just now.

Though he felt, he was numb until he'd touched Miss Howell's hand, so soft, unblemished skin against his own.

What…what _was_ this feeling residing in his chest? He stood there a moment longer as Hope situated herself, before spotting the chair that Newt Scamander had sat in earlier this evening when he'd first addressed Hope and thought that more sufficient, crossing over to the room and sitting down in it, folding his arms across his slender chest.

As he watched the slow and steady rise and fall of Hope's chest as she slept, he allowed his mind to drift and mull over the thoughts of how his evening had gone, and what it was that he'd just felt for Miss Howell a second ago.

Her beauty, the way she had smiled at him, rendering him feeling weak in the knees and his heart sent into irregular palpitations within his chest until he thought it just might grow wings and escape.

It was unlike anything Lupin had ever seen or ever known. He would have to ask Tina.

The feeling was sweet like decadent chocolate, soft like pigeon feathers; warm like the sun, and shocking like a sudden bolt of lightning, and that said lightning was now in his light, kind hazel eyes as the realization dawned on Lyall.

It was in Miss Howell's bedroom as he kept true to his promise that he began to understand what was happening.

Not very clearly, considering this feeling was quite foreign and brand-new to the lonely expert on boggarts. But it was more than enough.

Lyall Lupin was beginning to fall in love with Hope Howell.


End file.
